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# LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. J 



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I UNITED STATES OP AMERICA. { 



POEMS 



BY 



AUGUSTUS JULIAN REQUIER 




PHILADELPHIA : 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT & 00. 
1860. 



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Eutered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern 

District of Pennsylvania. 



TO 

MARY ELIZABETH REUUIER, 

la miu, 

WH03I THE LORD HAS REMOVED TO HIS SPIRITUAL KINGDOM, 

THESE POEMS, 

A FEEBLE TRIBUTE TO HER NOBLE INTELLECT 
AND STILL NOBLER AFFECTIONS, 

ARE INSCRIBED. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Inteoduction to Crystalline..... ,. 9 

Crystalline — the Created 25 

The Image 54 

Ode to Shakspeare 56 

Sly Cupid 64 

Treasure-trove 66 

Midsummer-day 's Dream 69 

The Thornless Rose 75 

The Phantasmagoria — A Poetical Fantasy 77 

My Flower, my Gem, and my Star! 88 

Farewell Address to the Palmetto Regiment.. 90 

Welcome to the Same 93 

To Mary 96 

To Little Mollie 98 

The Dial-plate 100 

Margaret 103 

(V) 



VI CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Agnes Dew..... , 105 

Life 108 

The Star-watch 110 

A Charm Ill 

Iron Chimes 116 

Unspoken 121 

Hail to the Freel 124 

Song 125 

Marco Bozzaris — A Play 127 



CRYSTALLINE— THE CREATED. 



IntrflUitttiijn 



© 



CRYSTALLINE. 



It is a clear and indisputable canon of criticism, that 
an artistic creation should explain itself — that it should 
develop the conception of which it is the chosen 
vehicle, with such distinctness of outline and sym- 
metrical subordination of details, as to render any 
resort to separate elucidatory adjuncts entirely super- 
fluous. True, an offender against this law, would find 
no difficulty whatever in, at least, excusing his delin- 
quency on the score of precedent. The classical 
models, within and without our language, are so 
^klead in trespasses and sins'' of this description, 
deliberately committed, that a culprit, arraigned in 

2 (9) 



I 



10 INTRODUCTION TO CRYSTALLINE. 

the courts which recognize their authority, and plead- 
ing the force of their example, could scarcely fail of 
procuring an honorable discharge. Had I imitated, 
therefore, the structure of many of these models, in 
which the purpose of the extrinsic annotations is 
not merely synoptical, but designed to aid in enu- 
cleating the selected theme, my course, in this respect, 
could not be condemned, without an implied visitation 
of the same censure upon more eminent transgressors. 
But it is the object of the notes prefixed to several 
parts of the poems subjoined, and of this introduction, 
to do neither. 

The fundamental distinction between Philosophy 
and Poesy, is that between the abstract and the con- 
crete — between the essential and the formal — between 
principles, in their logical analysis, and the same prin- 
ciples in their carnal manifestation. The philosopher 
resolves and generalizes; the poet depicts and com- 
bines. The quest of the one, is, the solution of the 
soul ; the aim of the other, the reproduction of the 
body: the one reasons — the other fashions; the one 
demonstrates — the other discloses; the one deciphers 
invisible Truth — the other creates visible Beauty. So 



INTRODUCTION TO CRYSTALLINE. 11 

radical is this distinction, that it translates itself into, 
and absolutely controls, their several modes of utter- 
ance ; and so, forces the former into the dry channels 
of Prose, while it compels the latter into the living 
chambers of Imagery. Hence, as every '^ thing of 
Beauty," is susceptible of being viewed, either as to its 
interior principles, or as to its exterior shape, every 
such object is, of necessity, equally available to the 
poet and the philosopher ; and the true stress of the 
objection to what are called philosophical poems, is not 
to art-products which legitimately embody a philosophy, 
or present it objectively ^ but to those which undertake, 
through the inappropriate medium of song, to ratioci- 
nate, or unfold it analytically. 

Thus, it appears, that the processes of the Poet and 
those of the Philosopher, in the handling of a common 
thesis, are altogether distinct; that, hence, no one has 
a right to expect, the sensuous incarnations of the 
poet from the exact expositions of the philosopher, or, 
on the other hand, the exact expositions of the philoso- 
pher from the sensuous incarnations of the poet ; and, 
again, that, forasmuch as the poet cannot properly 
deal in the exact expositions of the philosopher, he is 



12 INTRODUCTION TO CRYSTALLINE. 

constantly driven to assume, in his reader, some knowl- 
edge of the philosophy of the subject he exclusively 
portraySj as an inseparable condition of the exercise of 
his art. 

Could such an assumption be made respecting the 
rationale of the following production, (which would 
seem to be unwarranted, by the novelty of the theory 
it seeks to embody,) it would need, it is believed, 
neither note, nor introduction; as a poem, it would 
explain itself. And it is'to suj)ply this supposed de- 
ficiency, and for no other purpose — to place the reader 
en rapport with the work, and not at all to aid in un- 
folding the work itself to the reader — that it is, now, 
accompanied with a single explanatory line. 

The rational conception on which this poem pro- 
ceeds, is concerned about the ^'Creation of the Uni- 
verse, in its relations with the immortality of the 
Soul.'' Such is its theme. In the solution of that 
problem, it postulates, that Man is an image and like- 
ness of his Maker, not only because such is the express 
averment of the Inspired Volume, but because it is, 
also, the dictate of sound reason. For intuition and 
induction alike assure us, that the latter is Perfect (or 



INTRODUCTION TO CRYSTALLINE. 13 

Infinite, the terms are strictly convertible,) Love, Per- 
fect Wisdom, and their inevitable sequence, Perfect 
Use ; or, to phrase it illustratively, the very fountain of 
Spiritual Heat, of Spiritual Light, and of their joint 
Proceeding ; whereas we know — if we know anything 
— that Man is a form of Will, Understanding, and 
Action ; and that his will is the seat (or receptacle) of 
his lovCy and his understanding the seat (or receptacle) 
of his wisdom, and his action the seat (or receptacle) 
of their going forth into use; whence, there is a 
plenary correspondence or analogy between them, not- 
withstanding the immeasurable gulf by which they are 
separated — the superiority of the absolutely Perfect, 
(or original Life,) over the radically Imperfect, (or de- 
rivative Life,) between which no ratio can possibly be 
given. 

When we say ''derivative life," we do not mean 
thereby to intimate, however remotely, the blasphemous 
Pantheistic heresy of a God universally distributed 
over, and actually infused into Xature- but simply to 
suggest, that, in virtue of the plenary correspondence 
in question, the creature is fashioned to receive the 
Divine Life, by reflection, as a man projects his image 

9* 



14 INTRODUCTION TO CRYSTALLINE. 

into a glass, in which, nevertheless, he is not. Some- 
thing of the same sort is familiarly exhibited, by the 
operation of the Natural Sun, which does not, and can- 
not, communicate its essential fire to the earth, because 
of its transcendently discriminated superiority of de- 
gree, and, hence, comes to it mirrored in discarded 
emanations or atmospheres, which, though void of its 
essential life, are, nevertheless, in agreement therewith, 
and so, serve to transmit its vivifying heat and light, 
into adapted receptacles. And it is strange, that, with 
this example constantly before their eyes, and reason- 
ing apparently from its analogy, the grovelling wor- 
shipers of the extension of Nature, who fall within the 
category alluded to above, should have proceeded to 
confound moral sunshine with a moral Sun, and then, 
again — as if to cap the climax of sensual insanity — ^to 
confound that sun with the Perfectly or Divinely 
Human Being — the sole-subsisting, the self-subsisting, 
the supreme ! whom such a sun naturally presupposes, 
as the source and center of its purely humanitary 
radiations — the outflowing love and wisdom which 
constitute its exponential essence and glory. In other 
words, and, in short, what are human principles with- 



INTRODUCTION TO CRYSTALLINE. 15 

out a human subject, or Being, in whom they may be, 
and from whom they may proceed ? What are mere 
qualities^ or states, of a thing, separated from the 
thing itself? Are they not pure abstractions, and, if 
so, hoiD can they possibly thus exist ? 

This analogy between God and Man — between the 
Perfect and the Imperfect, being assumed as the con- 
current teaching of Revelation and Reason, and the 
difference between them allowed for, by conceiving of 
every imperfect attribute discerned, in the latter, as per- 
fect in the former, it is proposed to venture from the 
premises, thus established, to a suggestive conclusion, 
and to reason : If man is, indeed, a little, miniature 
image of the Divine — if Love, Wisdom and Use are 
equally predicable of the Creator and his representa- 
tive Creature, may we not attain to some approxima- 
tive conception, of the process by which the Perfect 
created his vast work of the Universe, by analyzing the 
process whereby the Imperfect projects a mental crea- 
tion into space ? In other words, by tracing out the 
imperfect product of a finite artist, from its first dawn 
in the soul, to its final embodiment in matter, may we 
not see, as ''through a glass, darkly," but still i>ee, how 



16 INTRODUCTION TO CRYSTALLINE. 

the perfect product of the Divine Artist — His stupen- 
dous Universe, with its majestic train of orbs, and re- 
splendent phases of Light, Life, and Being, was, by an 
all-pervasive and unitary order, radiated into exist- 
ence ? And again, if the analogy of the creative 
process, in the Finite Mind, shall yield us a clue to the 
corresponding process in the Infinite Mind, may we 
not, at least, hope to discover, in the so-ascertained 
relations of the Finite Creator's product to himself, 
another diminished image, or reflected representation, 
of the dependent relations of all creaturely existence 
on the Infinite Creator, and thus, obtain new light on 
the most momentous of those relations — the immor- 
tality of the soul ? 

This much being premised, the logical scope of the 
conception may be intelligibly condensed into the fol- 
lowing consecutive propositions : 

I. Man was made an image and likeness of his 
Maker — the Divine. 

II. This image and likeness of the Divine, is, from 
his very nature, (as being such image and likeness,) in 
a subordinate sense, a Creator; and the process by 



INTRODUCTION TO CRYSTALLINE. 11 

which he creates, and can alone create, when analyzed, 
shows, 

1. That the thing created by him, must, before it 
becomes outwardly manifest, pass through three dis- 
tinct humanitary spheres or little worlds : one, of his 
will, (or Spiritual Heat, that being the seat of the affec- 
tions, which are warm,) where it originates, as a de- 
sire — an aspiration — an end; another, of his under- 
standing, (or Spiritual Light, that being the seat of 
the thoughts, which are luminous,) where it first ac- 
quires a form or cause ; and a third, of his body, (or 
Material Substance, that being the seat of determina- 
tions to action, which are objects,) whereby, being thus 
interiorly completed, it is clothed upon and mani- 
fested, as a final effect. 

2. That these three spheres, or little worlds, though 
adapted for co-operation, are, nevertheless, altogether 
distinct from each other; for to will, is distinctly one 
thing, to think, distinctly another, and to do, as dis- 
tinctly a third; wherefore, they are differenced as mo- 
tive, means, and action — end, cause, and effect — or 
love, wisdom, and use. 

3. That the thing so desired by the will, or Heat 



18 INTRODUCTION TO CRYSTALLINE. 

principle, and formed by the understanding, or Light 
principle — in short, the inwardly perfected conception 
or creation, and which, being so perfected, is merely 
manifested by means of Matter, must, perforce, co- 
endure with the source from whence it is essentially 
derived — the mind of its Maker; the same inwardly 
perfected creation, however the merely manifesting 
medium, through which, as through a coarser form, it 
is sensuously disclosed, may change, deteriorate, or 
perish. 

III. From which several premises — that Man is an 
image and likeness of his Maker, and that, being so, 
he creates, and can alone create in the manner and 
with the incidents above detailed, the conclusion is 
suggestively deduced, that the great work of his Di- 
vine Exemplar — the Universe, (allowing for the differ- 
ence between the workings of an Imperfect and a 
Perfect Being,) was created by a strictly analogous, 
though higher, process : hence, that this was done, by 
means of three corresponding spheres, or indefinitely 
larger worlds; hence, that these spheres or worlds, 
while inherently co-operative, are, nevertheless, as dis- 
tinct as motive, means, and action — end, cause, and 



INTRODUCTION TO CRYSTALLINE. 19 

effect — or Love, Wisdom, and Use ; and hence, finally, 
that the spiritual interiors of that universe — the in- 
wardly perfected creation of the Divine Mind, must 
partake of the Creator's immortality from whom it is 
essentially derived, however much its merely manifest- 
ing vesture, or grosser form — matter — may change, 
deteriorate, or perish. 

If to the above, it is objected, '^Is not this making 
the spiritural nature of the creature identical with that 
of the Creator, and so, confounding the creaturely soul 
with essential Divinity ?'' I answer, Xo : for the inte- 
rior elements in the creature, of which it is affirmed, 
that they must co-endure with the Mind of their Crea- 
tor, are not that Mind itself, but distinct emanations 
from it. Every object in Nature, from, the sun to the 
smallest flower, will stand for an illustration of this 
palpable distinction ; for every such object has a pro- 
ceeding sphere of emanations, and acts upon others by 
means of it alone; and who can fail to see, that the 
luminiferous ether is not the sun, or the fragrance 
of a flower the flower itself? But has mind such a 
sphere ? If it is anything, it surely proceeds or ope- 
rates according to the universal analogy of J^^ature, 



20 INTRODUCTION TO CRYSTALLINE. 

as is strikingly indicated by dreams, wherein the pro- 
ceeding thought becomes distinctly objective, and still 
more clearly so, by the simplest and most perfectly 
authenticated of the mesmeric phenomena. 

It results, therefore, from the correspondence or 
analogy, we have assumed to exist, on the joint au- 
thority of Revelation and Reason, between the Crea- 
tor and his representative creature, and from the analy- 
sis submitted of the creative process in the latter, that 
the Divine created his supreme work of the Universe, 
from His perfect or essential Love, as an end, through 
His perfect or essential Wisdom, as an instrumental 
form or cause, and by means of a proceeding or dis- 
carded sphere of their several emanations, which con- 
tains absolutely nothing of the prior essential principles, 
or Divine Life Proper, from whence it proceeds, but the 
me7'e endeavor to represent it, as in an image-— to re- 
flect it, as in a glass, in an endlessly indefinite variety 
of sublime combinations. Thus, the Creator and the 
Creation are divided by the fundamental distinction of 
the producer from the thing produced. And thus, the 
Infinite — the Perfect — the Unitary, (essential God,) is 
mirrored in the Finite — the Imperfect — the Indefinitely 



INTRODUCTION TO CRYSTALLINE. 21 

Numerous, (His derived, but inherently distinct Spirit- 
ual and Natural Universe, in their totality.) 

Again: as the proceeding spheres of the Will, 
Understanding, and Action of the artist, are severally 
and distinctly in his work — insomuch so, that an acute 
observer can clearly discover them in it, as in their repre- 
sentative image — and because the proceeding therein 
from his finite will is one thing; that from his finite 
understanding another ; and that from his finite action 
still another ; and these three proceedings are strictly 
related as the end is to the instrumental cause, where- 
by it is first formed, in order that it may pass into 
an ultimate effect — hence, though co-operative, are, 
neipVertheless, in themselves, altogether distinct; and 
because the two first of these proceedings, viz., 
those from the will and the understanding of the 
artist, being interior or spiritual, must co -endure with 
the sources from whence they are derived ; it follows — 
if we extend the analogy to the Divine and His Crea- 
tion — that there are three corresponding proceedings 
from Him in that Creation: a proceeding from His 
Divine Will, or Perfect Love ; a proceeding from His 
Divine Understanding, or Perfect Wisdom; and a pro- 



22 INTRODUCTION TO CRYSTALLINE. 

ceeding from His Divine Action, or Perfect Use ; — and 
because these several proceedings are distinct, that 
they constitute as many distinct worlds ; and because 
they are related as end, cause, and effect, that these 
worlds were successively produced in the order of those 
principles, and that they are those principles; and, 
finally, because the proceedings which constitute the 
two first of those worlds, viz., those from the Divine 
Will and the Divine Understanding of the Creator, are 
interior, or spiritual, that they are co-eternal with the 
sources from whence they are derived : wherefore, the 
inmost, or highest, of the Universe, is a separate world 
of Ends, which, consisting of the proceeding sphere of 
the essential Divine Love, mirrors or represents it 4n 
celestial objects; and its next, or intermediate, is a 
separate world of Causes, which, consisting of the 
proceeding sphere of the essential Divine Wisdom, 
mirrors or represents it in spiritual objects ; and its 
boundary or ultimate, is a separate world of Effects, 
which, consisting of the proceeding sphere of the essen- 
tial Divine Use, mirrors or represents it in natural ob- 
jects — whence, the objects of this last world are the 
bases or terminations of all created things, wherein 



INTRODUCTION TO CRYSTALLINE. 23 

they finally close or rest — as such, serve to contain and 
set forth, representatiyely, the objects of the prior 
ones — and are external, material, or least perfect, and, 
for that reason, lowest and perishable, whereas the ob- 
jects of the former are internal, spiritual, or more 
perfect, and, for that reason, higher and imperishable. 
Thus, God, in his supreme, eternal, and incommunica- 
ble beatitude — His Perfect Love, Wisdom, and Use, 
abides forever, pavilioned by a Universe of their seve- 
ral concentric and corresponding spheres of emanation, 
wherein his adorable Image is, consequently, every- 
where reflected, and which He governs in governing 
Himself. 

Such is the theory sought to be embodied, in the 
production hereby introduced. In it, I have presented 
a mortal artist, as a mimic Creator, and, through him, 
a miniature Creation, m actual process of evolution^ 
from world to world, according to the supposed image 
and likeness of the Great One. For the sake of dra- 
matic effect, I have made this little representative 
operator an infidel, who repudiates his God, and the 
immortality of his soul; and, temporarily gifting his 
art-creature, for the purpose, with human life and sen- 



24 INTRODUCTION TO CRYSTALLINE. 

sibility as to him, by means of a hallucination, superin- 
duced through the agency of opium, have caused the 
latter to retort upon him the very terms of his own 
blasphemous denial. As secondary to the main design, 
it will, also, be observed, that I have attempted a sym- 
bolical shadowing forth of the struggle between Good 
and Evil, in the heart, or the spiritual regeneration of 
the Soul. The reader, being now in the secret of the 
philosophy which underlies my thesis, is invited to ex- 
amine the sensuous or metrical illustration of it, con- 
tained in the following Poem. 



CRYSTALLINE THE CREATED. 



[•^I am the resurrection and tlie life; he who beliveth in Me, although he die, 
yet shall he live; but every one who liveth, and believeth in Me, shall never 
die."— John, xi. 25, 26.] 



PROEM. 

One was a saintly man, and old, 

With slender locks of snow ; 
The other a stalwart form, and bold, 
Whose brow of broad, artistic mould 
Hid, under clustering curls of gold, 

The rarer wealth below. 

By studious travel all unworn, 

And vigorous as the crystal Morn 

That mocks the hunter's lengthening horn. 

The younger was but barely home. 

Back to his castellated dome. 
From where St. Peter's cross and crown, 
Trampling the fallen Caesars down, 
Seem, from the very sky, to frown 

On subjugated Rome. 

3* (25) 



26 CRYSTALLINE — THE CREATED. 

His home — the Tuscan city, where 
The autumn leaf is seldom sere, 
And citrons gem the circling year — 
Where, mirrored in the Arno^s breast, 
A thousand palaces attest 

The splendor of her trophied name ; 
And Angelo and Dante rest. 

Colossal in their fame ! 

Already had his pencil wrought 
Its marvels of depicted thought. 
And, with the wild, impetuous pride 
Of genius, swimming with the tide 
Where Youth and Glory seem to blend 
In crested waves without an end ; 
Ere yet a cloud had dimmed the scene. 
To melt the heart or tinge the mien, 
The highborn, haughty limner sought 
In a mossy den, adown the glen. 
Sequestered from the eyes of men. 
The aged hermit who had taught 
His infant limbs their first essay, 
And made his earliest lispings pray. 

And they had talked from set of sun 
Till the shining stars were every one 



CRYSTALLINE — THE CREATED. 21 

Lost in midnight's harrowing hue 

Of dark, impenetrable blue ; 

Till the Moon, descending, nude and still, 

Yailed herself behind the hill ; 

Till the nightingale had ceased to sing 

Its welcome to the rising Spring, 

With a richlj-varied murmuring : 

And nought disturbed the sullen air, 

But birds of evil flitting there ! 

At first their conference had been 
Loving, gentle, and serene — 
That of friends who had not seen 
Each other's faces years between. 

And dwelt on long ago ; 

But suddenly it changed, and lo ! 
Their voices rose to a wrathful key, 
Like a threatening cloud on a summer sea. 

When the storm begins to blow. 

The old man saw the work of years, 
Of love, and hope, and tender cares, 
Of a father's counsel and mother's tears. 
Riven and rent in twain, 
Dragged in the pitiless rain, 
And plunged in the surging main. 



28 CRYSTALLINE — THE CREATED. 

Oh ! his aching heart, it bled to see, 
The boy who had knelt beside his knee 
Grown so tall and strong as he, 
Rioting in blasphemy. 

'^ Child!'' he exclaimed, in wild despair. 
His hands upon his piteous hair, 

^' Child of a saint, that shines in heaven 
Brighter than the star of even. 
And all the blessed flowers of Eden — 
Of her, I vainly loved in youth. 
Of him, I trusted for his truth ; 
But hear me, for these locks which glow 
In the setting sun of a life below ; 
And by her and him—-hj the holy dead — 
Recall the dark words thou hast said : 
' That Death is the seal of a soulless frame. 
And Christ, in creation, an empty name.''' 

A moment, on the skeptic's face 
There came a softer, kindlier grace ; 
But with the next, his high disdain 
Resumed its empire once again. 
He looked askance, as who would rail 
At the Patriarch of the vale, 
And, stooping to the lintel low 
Of the bosky cell, prepared to go, 



CRYSTALLINE — THE CREATED. 29 

He paused, and lifting o'er his head 
His haughty hand, at parting said : 

'' Behind this canvas, far out-rolled, 
From the teeming earth to the starry fold — 
Behind its foliage, flower, and fruit. 
Its reptile form and its reasoning brute. 
There is no super-terrestrial sphere. 
Where the Dead shall arise and reappear, 
In the bosom of Him who placed them here. 
I hate the fanatic, and scorn the lie. 
That madly peoples a vacant sky ; 
And brand the whole mysterious scheme, 
A coward's hope and an idiot's dream !" 

He spoke, and sought the dreary wood ; 
But ere his godless words had died, 
The ruthless howl of a wolf replied, 

(Lapping a motherless lambkin's blood,) 
In echoes, prolonged from side to side 
Of the dusky hills ; when, from a steep, 
Far distant up the mountainous sweep, 
Startled, in his dismal keep, 
A monster owl, with wild hallo, 
Tu-whit ! tu-whoo ! 
Shook the gorges through and through. 



30 CRYSTALLINE — THE CREATED. 



PART I. 

The creative act commences. A tale is narrated, respecting the 
family history of the artist, in the effect of whose catastrophe 
upon his consciousness it originates, thus: Will, or Love, the 
INMOST SPHERE of the God-likc human soul — distinct in itself, 
because exclusive in its function — gives the first impulse, (mo- 
tive,) through the pressure of its ruling (or characteristic) 
affection. This is the sphere of aspirations, or ends, which, 
as they are derived from loye alone, is a world or Heat. 

A year had sped ; and now the April sky 
Of still another held its golden horn 
Inverted to the landscape. Prison-like 
The Pitti palace, rising from the hill, 
Smiled sternly, smitten by the ascending sun 
With a huge shaft of light. The morning star 
Had vanished in the glitter of the dawn. 
Soft as a whispered prayer ! and all around 
The ancient structure grew the garden fair — 
The spot whose green is an exceeding joy, 
Which Florence lifts above her marble breast 
For blessing, as a mother lifts her child. 

Within this garden, and upon the brow 
Of this same eminence, the Artist stood, 



CRYSTALLINE THE CREATED. 31 

And had been standing since the lonely star 

Was fired with gold, and perished like a Saint, 

Holy from martyrdom. Before his vision, 

Wide circling with a panoramic scope, 

Lay that unrivaled and transporting scene — 

That consummated witchery of sense, 

Which all who see remember. iSTor thus alone ; 

But, vestured in its hymeneal mist, 

Mate of the Spring, with morning for its dower ! 

Yet on all this indifferently fell 

His introverted glance. He did not see 

The sculptured city kneeling at his feet. 

White as the Christmas snow; nor the rich plains, 

Yine-clad, and blossoming with orange flowers. 

Where fairy villas clustered into view ; 

No, nor the very mountains which inclosed 

The magic site with a purpureal glow. 

His taste had sickened of familiar forms 

In Nature and in Art. He cared not now, 

Whether in pictures or the pulsing air. 

For the gross beauty which material sense 

Monotonously prints upon the brain. 

The thrilling power of a holier light 

Had rent a cloud of silver on his soul. 

He had been suddenly baptized in fire 

With a strange glory, brighter than the sun, 



32 CRYSTALLINE THE CREATED. 

And moon, and stars. The dark, obscuring Vail 
Of the Ideal had been lifted up. 
And from its deeps her oracles had breathed 
A spell, to sway the mighty realms of thought 
As Dian sways the seas. 

Yet, yet, oh, God ! 
He saw not — felt not — dreamed not, even then, 
That halo came from thy miraculous Presence, 
Shed thro' a world immortal as itself. 
And thus it was : 

A single month before. 
The hoary almoner of the castle came, 
To tell him the appointed hour drew nigh, 
(His thirtieth year which then had been attained,) 
When the d6ad Baroness — his mother's vow. 
Traced in her will, and solemnly enjoined 
Upon this trusty servant, ere she died — 
Would claim its just fulfillment unto Heaven. 

''Thus said the Baroness, my lord," he spoke, 
''When, from her crested chamber in the East, 
Ere yet your childhood was five years advanced, 
Dying, upon her crimson couch she lay. 
In the gray evening : ' I do conjure thee, see. 
As thou dost wish my soul to rest in peace. 



CRYSTALLINE — THE CREATED. 33 

And countest on the Virgin at thy need, 
The full atonement promised be performed 
For which that soul is pledged !' 

''The dial, now, 
Points nearly unto noon ; and it is writ, 
You shall behold the sinful image then, 
If so you list, which, it is farther writ. 
Your hands must burn to-night.'' 

A sudden gloom 
Spread on the knightly limner's countenance, 
When thus the old man, muttering, led the way ; 
But, rising hastily, he followed fast 
Upon his steps. These, tended to a Chapel, 
Which, for three decades almost, had been closed 
Upon all mortals save the aged man, 
.Who now approached it tremblingly. 

Within, 
A stern Madonna o'er the altar hung, 
As if extorting worship on the pain 
Of bloody retribution ! Under her, 
A crucifix, with lonesome candles lit. 
Rose from the dismal shrine ; at whose black base, 
Prostrated lay a painting, lowlily, 

4 



34 CRYSTALLINE THE CREATED. 

Vailed like the coffined cerements, whereon 

Was stretched a robe of sackcloth, strown with ashes ! 

They had but entered, when the Artist rushed, 

With deep emotion glistening in his eyes, 

Toward this fallen image ; up he raised 

The humble habit to his heaving breast. 

And sobbed out while he clasped it mournfully : 

Then, lifting high the picture, till it stood 

Against the altar, and overshadowed it, 

Rightly revealed in the meridian light, 

He knelt, and gazed, and wept — weeping exclaimed, 

At intervals and interruptedly, 

Only, ^' My mother !" in a melting tone, 

Nor uttered other sounds. 

* Another Sun 

Was shining on his sight ; and, in its disk — 
Ringed with the radiance of supernal thought — 
An Angel was depicted in a flash 
Of loveliness unearthly and supreme ! 

And this was she — the beautiful, the proud, 
Who, ere her infant could articulate — 
A wonder among virgins, and more fair, 
Because she w^as a wife — had rashly dared. 
With sacrilegious vanity, to take 



CRYSTALLINE — THE CREATED. So 

That stern Madonna from her marble niche, 
And hang her own sweet simulation there. 

Alas ! she dreamed not how the plague would come 

And smite the cherub clinging at her breast ; 

And how, low bending to the pavement stones 

Of that same desecrated shrine, that she — 

The beauteous Baroness, with a diamond crown 

Starring the twilight of her dusky hair, 

Would rend her rich habiliments and vow 

Rude sackcloth to her ivorj limbs for life, 

And to the dust of the polluted spot 

Her sinful counterfeit — if only he, 

Her innocent babe, should, in the prime of being — 

His faculties matured to hate her crime, 

Be spared her now, that he might then consume, 

With fire enkindled at a midnight Mass, 

The thrice- accursed thing ! 

^ ;{c :j£ ^ :»i Hi 

The turret-clock, 
Which chimes aloud but when the Xorth wind blows, 
Distinctly tolls the third watch of the night ! 

Before the ChapePs darkling altar stood 
A robed, officiating priest, beneath 
The frowning Xemesis ; who, in the gleam 
Of her lone tapers and the lurid brands 



36 CRYSTALLINE THE CREATED. 

Of surpliced acolyths, with white clouds blent, 
Which thurifers from burnished censers swung, 
Seemed to smile horribly ! 

Behind them all, 
A shadowy figure, o'er an oval frame, 
Was bowed in stone-like sorrow. At a word, 
Breathed by an old man weeping on his side, 
He shook convulsively ; then, straightening up 
His bent form till it looked the iron will 
Which clove its heart in twain, he calmly grasped 
A neighboring torch, and fired the fated frame. 

One moment — and one only — when the blaze 

Had risen so high the sanctuary glared. 

Thro' its red casements, like a frenzied fiend 

Cast into darkness ! that angelic smile. 

So beautiful, so gentle, so serene, 

Glowed with a lovelier tenderness, which transfused 

Its parting glory to the filial breast 

Gazing, enrapt, upon it ! In the next. 

It was a heap of ashes. 

From that hour. 
Graven' in gloom upon his calendar. 
There came a warmth — a longing — a desire — 
A subtle fondness — an absorbing love — 



CRYSTALLINE — THE CREATED. 37 

A sovereign prompting of the inmost will, 

Which now assumed its scepter, crown, and state, 

And, merging all affections in itself. 

Became and was — the Man ! It was not Thought, 

For that was yet to come ; but Love, or Will, 

Moving distinct in its creative sphere, 

Divinely on the undivided waste 

And panoplied in germinating fire. 

He felt it in the sunlight, and the shades 

Of topling mountains, in the starry night, 

The restless ocean rolling o'er its deeps. 

The summer rain and oak-uprooting tempests, 

The cloud, the breeze, the cataract's thunder, 

And the wild cascade snowing among the hills ; 

In solitude and in the haunts of men — 

With all creation and all creatures blent — 

A constant and a consecrating Presence, 

That urged Mm still to i^eproduce that face 

With VjJiat had seemed its last celestial looky 

And incarnate the frailty ivhich had soiled 

A beauty so transcendent/ 

How, till then. 
He knew not ; but upon him was the speU 
Of that great Sorcery which, alone, has moved 
Man thro' the Cycled Ages — wheresoever, 

4* 



38 CRYSTALLINE — THE CREATED. 

For fame, or power, or wealth, or heaven, or hell, 
His soul has yearned with a predominant love — '■ 
Its governing volition and its God I 



PAET II. 



The creative act attains its second or middle stage. The ruling 
affection of the Will, or Love, now seeks the co-operation of 
the SECONDARY SPHERE of the Understanding, or Wisdom, 
(equally distinct in itself, because exclusive in its function 
with the former,) to procure thereby the means of its own 
satisfaction. This is the sphere of forms, or causes, which, 
as they are derived from Wisdom alone^ is a World of Light. 

Soft-brooding as a mated dove, 

In climes unvisited by storm, 
The incubating Love began 

To shape a shadowy form. 

A mist-like — floating — shadowy thing, 

Engendered in a lower sphere, 
Whose arc shines with formative light 

Which glows forever there. 

Where Reason sits a throned king, 

And queenly Fancy, at his side. 
Clad in the splendor of her dreams. 

Is a perpetual bride. 



CRYSTALLINE — THE CREATED. 39 

Where, thro' a still revolving Day, 
Whose endless course is never run, 

The giant Thought drives ceaselessly 
The chariot of the Sun ! 

The flashing coursers, fair and fleet. 
Whose labor turns the Golden Wheel, 

Where fashioned, only, unto sights 
Is every thing we feel. 

This bright world of the busy brain 

Within the Artist was aglow 
With beauteous birds, that came and went, 

And wandered to and fro ! 

With winged hues, and dyes, and forms, 
Not such as pierce the coarser sense, 

But purified and winnowed in 
Divine Intelligence. 

He borrowed from the early Moon 

Its halo of transparent white. 
What time 'tis, in the chambered air, 

Born of the blessed Night ! 

He stole her blushes from the rose. 
And from the fount its falling grace, 

To paint a lovely bending form. 
With a still lovelier face. 



40 CRYSTALLINE THE CREATED, 

And with transmuted tints of blooms 
That Bards must ever leave unsung, 

And golden fruit, which never yet 
On Autumn boughs have hung, 

He wove a paradisal arch 

Of leaf and fruit, and dreamed-of flower, 
Pavilioned with the liveliest green 

That ever graced a bower ! 

And when he sought her sin to see. 
The Self-love we should crucify, 

A serpent, blossom-wreathed, revealed 
His fascinating eye. 

So, up it grew, that shadowy thing, 
Prom toil incessant and intense, 

(Por when the sinking spirit failed, 
He drugged its weary sense,) 

Until, at length, completely crowned, 

The wonder reared, enriched and wrought, 

Came, in transfigured symmetry. 
Out of the realm of Thouo:ht ! 



CRYSTALLINE — THE CREATED. 4 I 



PAKT III. 

The creaiiye act is complete. The Will, or Love, has, in its own 
orbit, aspired or instigated to an end; the Understanding, or 
Wisdom, in its own orbit, conceived a form, or cmise therefor; 
the outward body, in its own orbit, (impelled bi/ the end, and 
operating through the cause,) produced an ultimate effect — 
completing the inevitable chain of end, cause, and effect, 
which exists in all things. Divine or human; and the consum- 
mated creation is, consequently, now manifest to the external 
senses. This is the third oe. final sphere of effects, which, 
as they are derived from sensible objects alone, is a World of 
Matter. 

Like the idealistic glorj 

Of a dream in the tropic night, 
From a rich Arabian story 

Wrought and glittering silver- white — 
Wrought and radiant with the splendor of the cra- 
dled crescent's light, 

Did the picture just completed, 

On its ebony easel seated, 
Burst bewildering on the sight ! 

In that giddy, bewildering brightness, 
As the smile of a heart that grieves. 
Sunset mingled with dewy lightness. 



42 CRYSTALLINE — THE" CREATED. 

A rose and starlight vailing leaves, 
Knelt a virgin, pale, yet lovelier than was Ruth 
among the sheaves ; 
And beside her, softly stealing, 
Xaught but luminous eyes revealing, 
Emerald-green as the ivied eaves, 

Was a serpent, anear her lurking, 

In a cluster of fruitage flowered, 
Steathily thro' the shade up- working, 

Till its eyes, in a branch embowered, 
Shone and sparkled, efflorescent, with a dahlia's 
beauty dowered — 

Shone so bright the maiden, kneeling, 

Seemed, with a tumultuous feeling, 
Almost, then, to have started forward, 

When a gush of the moonlight glancing 

Thro' the leafy o'erhanging screen. 
Suddenly broke the mad entrancing 

With a mellowness soul-serene. 
As if a winged angelic host had lit, resplendent, on 
the scene; 

And the liquid argent pouring 

Round the fair one, half-adoring. 
Rapt, etherealized her mien ! 



CRYSTALLINE — THE CREATED. 43 

On that incandescent whiteness — 

On that shadowy, dim design, 
Gazed the Artist with such a brightness 

As eclipses all other sign — 
Gazed and felt, but never whispered — gazing, called 
it Crystalline ! 

Crystal lake, where Heaven is glowing — 

Crystal maiden, reflecting, showing 
All of a mortal dream divine. 



CONCLUSION. 



The work was ended ; but, alas ! 
That such a chance should come to pass. 
Its author had but forged a chain, 
Which bound him mightier than the main, 
In strait captivity and pain. 

For, now, the thing himself had made 
Threw on his soul a dismal shade, 
And morn, and noon, and sunset hour — 
Such was its wild, mysterious power. 
He stood before it, sore opprest. 
By a sad phantasy possessed ; 



44 CRYSTALLINE — THE CREATED. 

For, still, the drug-empurpled wine, 
Which had made his soul to shine 
In the crimson blood's decline, 
Ran as runs its native Rhine, 
And he believed, oh, world of strife ! 
. The image yet would come to life. 

It was a dark November night. 
And a cloud of blight and blast 
O'er the waning moon had passed, 

The Old Moon flying with pale affright ! 
On a table of twisted wood 
A silver cresset, shining, stood 
In his studio, arched and high, 
Frescoed with Mythology, 
And beside it, flowered and fine, 
A Yase of poppy-purpled wine ! 

He himself, the man, alas ! 
On whom this chance has come to pass, 
Stands before the maid divine. 
Where the light doth mostly shine, 
By the drug-empurpled wine. 

He sees not, ah ! he cannot see, 
In so deep a revery. 



CRYSTALLINE — THE CREATED. 45 

A saintly man, whose locks of snow 

On his shoulders overflow ; 

And who has passed behind the screen — 

Golden-green ! 

Where a Knight, in bronze, is dimly seen, 

Slaying a Dragon fast, I ween. 

He sees not that the lightning's glare 
Glows on bits of armor there. 
And hears no thunder, tho' the sound 
Of the thunder shakes the very ground ! 

Saints of God ! why does he start, 
In his musings drear and deep. 
And hold his palpitating heart, 
Like one who, powerless, sees in sleep 
An adder just about to leap ? 

The picture moves! Oh, Heavens, from whence 
This strange illusion of the sense ? 
Save us. Lord, from magic arts — 
Again it moves ! Great Heart of Hearts ! 
And, now, the whole bright image starts — 
Glorifying all the air. 
Crystal-flooded everywhere. 
Round the lady surpassing fair, 
Living, pulsing, breathing there ! 
5 



46 CRYSTALLINE — THE CREATED. 

Every thing the painting- showed, 
With vivid life and motion glowed ; 
Each was, suddenly, transformed. 
And with animation warmed. 
Save the gush of moonlight glancing 
On the maiden's mad entrancing, 
Or, perchance, if it might be, 
This the Artist did not see. 

Where the cresset-lamp doth shine, 
By the Vase so rare and fine. 
Flushed with aromatic wine, 
Stood the Artist, all aghast. 
As if he looked his very last ! 

Gentle souls, what spell is this — 
What horrid mockery of bliss ? 
The serpent hidden beneath the flowers. 
From his eye a splendor showers, 
Which the maiden overpowers. 

Over the blooms and fruitage nigh, 

A gleam has flashed of the morning sky- 

The gem-like gleam of a restless eye ! 

See, it has fixed her eager gaze, 

With its rippling, drizzling rays ; 

And now, what diamond in the sun. 



CRYSTALLINE THE CREATED. 47 

By daintiest lapidary done, 

Shone ever as this radiant one ? 
(Maiden, maiden, oh ! beware 
That whitely, brightly glowing snare ! 
It will never deck thy dazzling hair — 
Alas ! she does not seem to fear :) 

It changes — and an opal's beam 

Iridescent there doth seem 

Love's roseate dream ! 
(Maiden, maiden, oh ! beware 
That softly iridescent snare. 
Sparkling innocently there — 
Alas ! she does not seem to care :) 

A ruby now is the restless gem, 

From a far Sultana's diadem, 

Blazing, with a crimson flame, 

In beauty which no tongue can name — 
(Maiden, maiden, oh ! beware 
That richly crimson-flowing sphere, 
'Tis a snare ! 
Alas ! she does not wish to hear :) 

Sapphire, like the azure dove 

Which descended from above 

Upon incarnated Love — 
(Maiden, maiden, turn and fly 
From that dove's deceptive eye ; 



48 CRYSTALLINE — THE CREATED. 

'Tis a fatal, fiendish snare — 

Oh ! beware, 

Alas ! she does not choose to hear :) 
Pearl, born of the waves unrest 
To heave upon a bridal breast. 
Thrilled and thrilling — blessing, blest- 
Moved, mysteriously impressed ! 

(Maiden, maiden, oh ! beware 

That pearl of Indus shining there ; 

On thy broidered, bridal vest, 

Thrilled and thrilling — blessing, blest — 

It will never know unrest, 

Heaving, light as boat can be, 

To a mist-bewildered sea ! 

Virgin fair. 

Oh ! beware, 

Alas ! alas ! she does not hear :) 
Amethyst, a monarch's pride — 
Daughter of the mountain-side, 
And beryl, green as an Orient isle, 
Bathed in Summer's burning smile, 
And carbuncle, red, but dark — 

(Fascinated maiden, hark ! 

'Tis the evil, gloating eye 

Of a hidden monster ni2:h, 



CRYSTALLINE THE CREATED. 49 

And that bloody-colored stone 

Soon will turn to black alone — 

Inky black, as is the night, 

It would wrap around thy sight — 

Maiden, maiden, oh ! beware 

That fatal, fiend-engendered snare — 

Merciful God ! she does not hear !) 

But a single instant yet 

And the charm, completely spun, 

Which can never be undone, 

On her dizzy sight will set 

In unfathomnable jet-^ 
(Maiden, maiden, oh ! beware 
The flaming, fatuous rays which fly 
From that gem-resembling eye — 
From that gleaming, glistening eye — 
From that fierce, relentless eye ! 
'Tis the snare 
Of a serpent hissing near ! 
Alas ! she will not, cannot hear.) 



It ceased, nor farther sought to win 
The voice that warned her from within. 



Then she, with the despairing sigh 
Of one condemned ere long to die. 
Who yet the dreadful doom would fly- 



50 CRYSTALLINE — THE CREATED. 

The maiden, in a dream-like tone, 
Snch as from shells is heard to moan, 
Crossing her hands upon her breast. 
In deeply pitiful unrest. 
Whispered to the silver air, 
Softly sweet, and sweetly clear : 

Bewailing that she had been made 
So fair, and beautiful, and bright, 

But to be cast into the Shade 
Of everlasting Night. 

From where the lamp doth dimly shine. 
By the Yase so flowered and fine, 
Red with aromatic wine, 
Her mortal maker made reply : 

''Child of my soul, thou shalt not die; 
For thou wert framed, oh ! dream divine, 
Not merely of the earthy dross 
Of thine investiture of gloss ; 
But, ere my pencil bade thee shine 
Within thy perishable shrine, 
Thou WERT — ART — MUST BE Still a part, 
By crumbling matter unconfined, 
Of this, my own aspiring heart. 
Which sphered thee in my mind — 



CRYSTALLINE THE CREATED. 51 

An image of tliat shaping force, 

As ENDURING AS ITS SOURCE." 

When thus spake he, how answered she, 
The maiden fashioned marvelously ? 

Amid the flash, the crash, the storm, 
As a bolt from its red bosom warm : 

'^Behind this canvas^ far out-rolled, 
From the teeming earth to the darry fold, 
Behind its foliage, flower, and fruit, 
Its reptile form and its reasoning brute. 
There is no super -terrestrial sphere, 
Where the Dead shall arise, and reappear 
In the bosom of Him ivho placed them here. 
I hate the fanatic, and scorn the lie 
That madly peoples a vacant sky; 
And brand the ivhole mysterious scheme 
A coivard\s hope and an idioVs dream.''' 

Where the dying lamp doth shine, 
Hurling the sculptured Yase, so fine, 
Down, with its purple, perfumed wine, 
He fell, quivering from the dart 
Shot through his paternal heart. 



52 CRYSTALLINE — THE CREATED. 

But when the Morn as a martyr came, 
Regenerate from the midnight flame, 
Xear the form whose locks of snow 
On its shoulders overflow. 
An altered man was kneeling there, 
For benediction on his prayer ! 

And thus he spoke, the hermit old. 
Watching him with love four-fold : 

''The perfect Lord, who reigns above, 
Created thee from Perfect Love ; 
Like that fair image thou wert made, 
In a World of Light that cannot fade, 
Save that He does spontaneously— 
Harmoniously — consummately, 
What mortals mould imperfectly ; 
And as it triumphs in thine eyes, 
Through beams of the benignant skies. 
O'er the baffled Demon there, 
Whose deadly charm works everywhere 
To make the man a god appear ; 
So, saved by His redeeming grace 
Prom that serpent's slimy trace, 
With His glory on thy face, 
Live, for thou art born to be 
Heir of His immortality." 



CRYSTALLINE — THE CREATED. 53 

The cresset dim has ceased to shiue ; 
Prostrated is the Yase so fine, 
Enwreathed with drooping eglantine ; 
And wasted all the purple Wine — 
The poppied, poisonous, perfumed Wine. 



54 TFIE IMAGE. 



THE IMAGE. 



— ^^^ — 



Thou dwellest in my thoughts, 
As shines a jewel in some ocean cave, 
Which the eye marks not and the waters lave — 
A ray of light imprisoned ! which none save 
The soul that shrines it knows — its temple and its 
grave. 

Thou bathest in my dreams ; 
A form of dainty Beauty — something seen 
At cloudy intervals, through a gauze-like screen— 
A voice of gentle memories — a mien 
Too tender for an angel's, yet as fair, I w^een. 

Thou sparkiest through my fears ; 
A hope which blossoms as an early flower, 
Shines in the sun nor droops beneath the shower — 
A holy star that glides at vesper hour 
Into the dusk-hung sky — and, saintly, seems to lower ! 



THE IMAGE 55 

In daylight and in dreams, 
'Mid hopes that beckon and 'mid fears that frown, 
Thou art the juice that every care can drown ; 
A rose amongst the thorns — the azure down 
Of the meek-brooding dove — the Halo and the Crown! 



56 ODE TO SHAKSPEARE. 



ODE TO SHAKSPEARE. 



He went forth into Nature and he sung, 
Her first-born of imperial sway- — the lord 
Of sea and continent and clime and tongue ; 
Striking the Harp with whose sublime accord 
The whole Creation rung ! 

He went forth into Nature and he sung 
Her grandest terrors and her simplest themes — 
The torrent by the beetling crag o'erhung, 
And the wild-daisy on its brink that gleams 
Unharmed, and lifts a dew-drop to the sun ! 
The muttering of the tempest in its halls 
Of darkness turreted ; beheld alone 
By an o'erwhelming brilliance which appals — 
The turbulence of Ocean — the soft calm 
Of the sequestered vale — the bride-like day, 
Or sainted Eve, dispensing holy balm 
From her lone lamp of silver thro' the gray 
That leads the star-crowned Night adown the moun- 
tain wav ! 



ODE TO SHAKSPEARE. 6t 

These were his themes and more — no little bird 
Lit in the April forest but he drew 
From its wild notes a meditative w^ord — 
A gospel that no other mortal knew^ : 
Bard, priest, evangelist! from rarest cells 
Of riches inexhaustible he took 
JThe potent ring of her profoundest spells, 
And wrote great Nature's Book ! 

They people earth and sea and air, 

The dim, tumultuous band, 

Called into being everywhere 

By his creative wand ; 

In kingly court and savage lair. 

Prince, Peasant, Priest, and Sage and Peer, 

And midnight hag and ladye fair. 

Pure as the white rose in her hair, 

And warriors that on barbed steed, 

Burn to do the crested deed. 

And lovers that delighted rove 

When moonlight marries with the grove. 

Glide forth — appear ! 

To breathe or love or hate or fear ; 

And with most unexampled wile, 

To win a soul-enraptured smile, 

Or blot it in a tear. 

6 



58 ODE TO SHAKSPEARE. 

Hark ! a horn, 

That with repeated winding shakes, 

O'er hill and glen and far responsive lakes, 

The mantle of the Morn ! 

Now, on the mimic scene. 

The simplest of all simple pairs 

That ever drew from laughter tears, 

Touchstone and Audrey, hand in hand, 

Come hobbling o'er the green ; 

While Rosalind, in strange disguise, 

With manly dress but maiden eyes. 

Which, spite herself, will look side wise. 

E'en in this savage land ; 

And her companion like the flower, 

That, beaten by the morning shower, 

Still in resplendent beauty stoops. 

Looking loveliest whilst it droops. 

Step faintly forth from weariness — 

All snowy in their maidenhood — 

Twin-lilies of the wilderness — 

A Shepherd and his Shepherdess, 

In Arden's gloomy wood ! 

But comes anon, with halting step and pause, 
A miserable man ! 



ODE TO SHAKSPEARE. 69 

Revolying in each lengthened breath he draws, 
The deep, dark problem of material laws, 

That life is but a span : 
Secluded, silent, solitary, still. 
Lone in the vale and last upon the hill, 
Companionless beside the haunted stream, 
Walking the stars in the meridian beam, 
Himself the Shade of an overshadowing Dream; — 
Blighting the rose 
With his imaginary woes, 

And weaving bird and tree and fruit and flower 
Into a charm of such mysterious power — 
Such plaintive tale 
The beauteous skies grow pale. 
And the rejoicing earth looks wan. 
Like Jacques — her lonely, melancholy man ! 

Ring silver- sprinkling, gushing bells — 

Blow clamorous pipes replying. 

In the tipsy merriment that swells 

Forever multiplying ! 

He comes ! with great sunshiny face 

And chuckle deep and glances warm. 

Sly nods and strange attempts at grace, 

A matron on each arm : 

He comes! of wit the soul and pith, 



60 ODE TO SHAKSPEARE. 

Custodian and lessor, 
Room for him ! Sir John Falstaflf with 
The merry Wives of Windsor. 

Lo ! on a blasted heath, 

Lit by a flashing storm. 

The threatening darkness underneath, 

Three of the weird form ! 

Chanting, dancing altogether. 

For a charm upon the heather. 

Filthy hags in the foul weather ! 

The spell works, and behold : 
A castle in the midnight hour. 
Muffled ^mid battlement and tower, 
Whereon the crystal Moon doth lower 

Antartically cold ! 
A blackbird's note hath drilled the air, 
And left the stillness still more drear; 
Twice hath the horned owl around 
The Chapel flown, nor uttered sound; 
The night-breeze now doth scarcely blow 

And now, 'tis past and gone ; 
But the pale moon that like the snow 

Erewhile descending shone, 
Encrimsoned as the torch of Mars — 
While cloud on cloud obscures the stars 

And rolls above the trees — 



ODE TO SHAKSPEARE. 61 

Cleaves the dark billows of the Night 
Like a shot-smitten sail in flight 

Over the howling seas — 
God I what a piercing shriek was there, 
So deep and loud and wild and drear, 
It bristles up the moistened hair 
And bids the blood to freeze 5 

Again — again — 

Athwart the brain, 
That lengthened shriek of life-extorted pain ! 
And now, 'tis given o'er : 
But from that pile despairingly doth soar 
A voice which cries like the uplifted main, 
'^Glamis hath murdered sleep — Macbeth shall sleep 

no more !'^ 

Thick and faster now they come. 

In procession moving on, 

'Neath the world-embracing Dome 

Of the unexhausted One ; 

Mark them, while the Cauldron bubbles — 

Throwing spells upon the sight ! 
And the Wizard flame redoubles 

In intensity of light : 

Here is one — a rustic maiden 
Of the witching age, 
6* 



62 ODE TO SHAKSPEARE. 

Cheeks with beauty overladen — 
Blushing like a sunset Aidenn — 

Mistress Anne Page ! 
Here another that doth follow, 

Full of starch decorum — 
A wise man this Cousin Shallow, 

Justice of the Quorum; 
A third is timid, slight and tender, 
Showing harmless Master Slender ; 
A fourth, doth frowningly reveal, 
His princely mantle jeweled o'er, 
By knightly spurs upon his heel 
And clanging sound of martial steel. 
The dark, Venetian Moor ! 
The fifth advances with a start, 
His eye transfixing like a dart, 
Black Richard of the Iron-Heart ! 
And now they rush along the scene, 
In crowds with scarce a pause between. 
Prelates high, in church and state, 
Speakers dexterous in debate. 
Courtiers gay in satin hose, 
Clowns fantastic and jocose, 
Soldiers brave and virgins fair. 
Nymphs with golden flowing hair 
And spirits of the azure air, 



ODE TO SHAKSPEARE. 63 

Pass, with solemn step and slow, 
Pass, but linger as they go, 

Like images that haunt the shade. 

Or visions of the white cascade. 
Or sunset on the snow. 

Then, then, at length, the crowning glory comes, 
Loud trumpets speak unto the sky, and drums 

Unroll the military chain ! 

From pole to pole, 

Greet wide the Wonder of the poet's soul; 

With raven plume. 

And posture rapt in high, prophetic gloom — 

Hamlet, the Dane ! 

Bright shall thine altars be. 
First of the holy Minstrel band. 
Green as the vine-encircled land 
And vocal as the sea ! 

Thy name is writ 

Where stars are lit. 
And thine immortal shade, 
'Mid archangelic clouds displayed 

On Fame's imperial seat, 
Sees the inseparable Nine 
In its reflected glory shine, 

And Nature at its feet. 



64 SLY CUPID. 



SLY CUPID. 

^^ 

Fair lady, have you ever known 

That soft, seductive boy, 
Whose cheeks are like twin buds unblown, 

Whose silken tresses toy 
With every wind that stirs a flower 
In bloomy mead or woodland bower, 

So innocently coy ? 

This Cupid — thus they call the child, 

Did in my chamber creep. 
And, with his little eyes so mild. 

He soothed me fast asleep ; 
Then waved his wand — a sunset gleam I 
And pencilled round me many a dream. 

Methought I saw a maiden fair. 
Bright beckoning from afar — 

A raven's plumage was her hair, 
Her eyes the evening star ; 



SLY CUPID. 65 

And, dimly floating in the sheen 
Of silvery orbs that shone between, 
I thought her some celestial Queen. 

Quoth I, " Sweet Cupid, will you give 

This maiden unto me ? 
I love her so, I cannot live 

Lest wrought in one are w^e ; 
Then, dearest boy, I pray you wing 
A tiny arrow from your string. 
To set her blushes blossoming !'' 

The little rogue — he shook his head, 

And winked his eyes of blue ; 
Then, smiling cunningly, he said, 

'^Ah, Sir, how can you sue 
A child like me of simple mind — 
To mischief-making uninclined ; 
And when, beside, ^tis proved to you 

That I AM BLIND?" 



66 TREASURE- TROVE. 



TREASURE-TROVE. 



'TwAS in that season of the year, 
When, here and there, a crimson leaf, 
Amid the pleasant foliage seems 
A harbinger of grief. 

When, with the sunset's tearful gleam, 
A chill wind withereth all the bowers ; 
And Mind, perforce, with Nature mourns, 
Each for its summer flowers. 

When all the birds of varied note, 
And scented vine and slender tree 
Are flown or faded ; and the woods 
Have voices like the sea. 

I met a maiden in my walk — 
A blossom that was scarcely blown, 
With Summer folded in her heart 
And fragrant in her tone. 



TREASURE-TROVE. 6T 

And soon came to lier shaded eyes 
A joy which none before had taught her — 
A light soft as the mirrored star, 
When dusk is on the water. 

It was a look that met not mine, 
But from it ever sought to rove ; 
And yet — in this anxietude — 
Was eloquent of love. 

A stolen look ! which, when I saw, 
A sudden, tremulous tinge of rose 
Suffused her virgin cheek, and seemed 
To break her heart's repose. 

What could I do ? The Spring was gone — 
The Summer, too, was ebbing low ; 
And mounted Autumn rides so fast 
Toward the Hills of Snow. 

So, ere the fairy days were flown, 
When, thro' the framed, fantastic glass, 
Our running sands seem grains of gold 
And silver as they pass, 

I whispered ! while her cheeks o'erflowed. 
Deeper than rose or twilight stream ; 



68 TREASURE-TROYE. 

And, since, onr mutual Life has been 
A re very — a dream. 

The leaf may fall — ^the blossom blow- 
I have no season but her eyes ; 
And they are of the changeless hue 
Of the blue, Summer skies ! 



midsummer-day's dream. 69 



MIDSUMMER-DAY'S DREAM.* 



" Here is pansies, that's for thoughts.'" — Hamlet. 

I HAVE been musing in the fields and woods, 
Revolving many things. A sultry noon 
Had passed and left an aching sense behind 
Of pressure on my brain. The oppressive heat 
Was cooling fast, and through the atmosphere 
The west wind shook his spiritual wings. 
I went into the fields^ — the balmy fields ! 
O'er the green meadows, where the grasses be, 
And all the rustic weeds : paused by the brook 
That moralizing goes, and pondered there ; 
Loitered awhile in the romantic vales, 
And courted meditation in the glooDi 
Of the monastic woods. 

Amongst the corn. 
Blithely the summer birds hopped everywhere. 
Chirping, at intervals, a sudden note, 

* Originally published under a diflferent title. 
7 



to midstjmmer-day's dream. 

Or chattering, in pleasant companies, 
Incessantly. The sprightly mocking bird 
Talked like a courtly bean ; the graver thrush 
Sung in sententious pauses, briefly, then 
Was wisely silent. Whistled the black bird — 
A shrill voice and satirical, at times — 
Prom a thin poplar tree ; as if he laughed 
At fools for very nutriment, and lived, 
Observingly, the Jacques of the woods. 

There is a by-path in the meadows which 
Leads to a lonely lake. A group of lilies, 
Fair as the limbs of bathing loveliness, 
Bend bashfully above the shaded waters. 
They look like virgins timidly disporting 
In vestured holiness within the pool. 
The dimness of a solitude surrounds them ; 
And yet they start, and seem to whisper when 
A breath uplifts the leaves ! Their images, 
As tremulous as if with life endued, 
Inverted lie beneath — blent with the rose 
Of the reflected sky. — As still as Death, 
And yet more lovely far than painted Life, 
This solitary place. These sinless flowers, 
So mingled with the sunset glassed below, 
Seem they not Angels sent to visit earth, 
With Heaven on their track ? 



midsummer-day's dream. 71 

Yet farther on, 
A thing contorted and with darkness crowned, 
Repels the Tiew. A bough projected far, 
And like the cross-wise sitting of a shape. 
In human mould conceived, obstructs the lake. 
Behind, a massive trunk, rounded and hairy. 
Sits lazily upon a mound of clay. 
Above is shaggy foliage, branching wide. 
Russet, with vivid glimpses interspersed 
Of rarest green. And over all a beard 
Of patriarchal moss, depending low, 
Waves white and venerable in the wind. 
Even such a tree, did, in the ancient days, 
The fancy make a rude Divinity 
And throne it in the hills. The Satyr-God, 
The father of the Xaiades and Fauns, 
Whose pipings made the solitudes of old 
Ring out the echoes of uncounted years. 
Responsive to his rustic minstrelsy ! 

I wandered through the forest, dimly lit 

By the descending sun. A grove of oaks, 

Amphitheatrical, eclipsed the flush 

Of day evanishing. Clad in the haze 

Of evening, countless boughs stood in the air 

Like spectres. These, for lattices, seemed carved 

Bv the weird architects who labor 



t2 midsummer-day's dream. 

At dead of night to vex the holy stars. 

A solemn arch, majestically high, 

Fronted the East, and made an oriel there — 

Where shone the gorgeous crystals of the Heavens. 

A curving break, in the overhanging foliage, 

Disclosed the moon, pearl-pencilled in the sky — 

Transparent in its outline — floating far — 

A crescent shell, fair as an infant's smile, 

Gleaming thro' slumber ! I bethought me, then, 

Of silver brows, mingled with memories 

Which are the plumes of Youth ; of eyes that haunt 

The soul in busy Manhood, calling back 

The freshness and the glory of the years 

Almost forgotten ; of sad melodies. 

Heard somewhere in the past, that dripped like dew 

Into the aching brain, and, trickling down. 

Sprinkled the heart with tears; of a pale boy, 

The meek companion of my childish hours, 

Who wore a crimson flower on his cheeks 

That withered up his life — and how I stole, 

One summer night, to his sequestered grave — 

With violets and roses overgrown — 

And, in my superstitious fancy, saw 

A queenly figure, garmented in snow. 

And crowned of ice, communing with the stars ! 



MIDSUMMER-DAY ^S DREAM, T3 

But musing thus, came suddenly a shade, 
Deep as the night and with harsh noises fraught. 
I glanced up, and the rooks — the reverend rooks — 
Had crowded all the boughs. Silence returned, 
But in the scene I saw, nor oak, nor grove, 
Nor birds of evil omen ; but an old pile 
Of Gothic structure, rude, yet richly wrought — 
Monarchical in grandeur — still and gray. 
The dusk of days autumnal in the Past 
Guarded its mighty aisles. Quaint histories, 
Wild legends of the Saints and Martyrs gone, 
And monumental statuary stood 
Blent with the pictured walls ; while, here and there. 
Slow-moving in the mystery of gloom, 
Dim Benedictines, over bell and book, 
Muttered low masses for the Dead, and sung, 
'Twixt whiles, a chant oracular ! The wind 
Was prisoned for an organ, in this place ; 
And when it rose, sonorous and sublime, 
The hooded figures bent their holy heads 
As if in silent prayer — the oriel moved, 
And darkened suddenly ! — the statues fell — 
The pictures started from the sculptured walls — 
And, with a rushing of tumultuous wings, 
The dreamy panorama passed away. 
7* 



T4 midsummer-day's dream. 

Go ye into the woods and muse awhile, 

The sore-perplexed, the unhappy and the lost, 

Or racked or riven — bleeding from a thorn — 

Go ye into the woods and muse awhile ; 

For it hath cure for crosses, medicine 

For pain, and promises even for despair. 

Go forth into the fields and take the hues 

Of its j)ure blossoms deep into your hearts ; 

Drink from the lily — taste the blushing rose — 

And, by the sky-embracing lake, invoke 

The images of Peace, the lays of Love, 

The wealth of Meditation, and the forms 

Of Spiritual Beauty. Go ye there ! — 

For, if ye cannot read a simple flower, 

Nor love a star, nor linger on a sound. 

Nor feel, for once, a sympathy with things, 

Ye are of those — the dull and stubborn-hearted — 

Who fall with Adam, to be cursed through Cain ! 



THE THORNLESS ROSE. 75 



THE THORNLESS ROSE. 



The tempest of a tliousancl dreams 
Hath broke, but left beliind 

A rose wliich in mj household gleams 

Thornlesslj beautiful, and seems, 
Day after day, to wind 

Its tender stalk about the breast, 

Closer, which it has blest ! 

The idol of the floodful Past, 

Like the prismatic Seven, 
Shines out — an arc compassionate cast 

O'er the benighted Heaven ! 
My God ! that I have lived, and she, 
At last, thy gift should be. 

Green hopes are blowing in my heart — 
Its Spring, so long delayed, 

Unvails a bride ; and they depart. 
The ruin, rock and shade; 



76 THE THORNLESS ROSE. 

And where the hail-stones crushing fell, 
Blushes a holy spell ! 

A spell of eyes that, in their love, 

As daisies thro' the dew 
Lift an intrusting look above, 

Seem thus to look at you — 
A spell of soft-enclosing arms, 
Shielding from many harms. 

01 tempest of a thousand dreams, 

I bless thee ; for behind 
Thy gloom is left that rose which gleams 
Thornlessly beautiful, and seems 

Inseparably twined 
With all that stirs within this breast, 
Now and forever blest ! 



THE PHANTASMAGORIA. tt 



THE PHANTASMAGOEIA-A POETICAL FANTASY, 



PAET I. 

The Moon is looking on the lake, 

Beside the mined Abbey; 
And its fingers white on the waters shake, 
Like the quivering curls of a silver snake, 
For the pale old Moon it must keep its wake 

In the dark clouds, thick and shaggy ! 
The night-wind hath a moaning tone, 

And it Cometh moaning by; 
The Hart's-tongue on the ancient stone, 
That years have crumbled, one by one, 
Answereth — sometimes like a groan, 

And sometimes like a sigh. 

A little light through the forest trees 

Is twinkling very bright ; 
Like a distant star upon waveless seas. 

Or a glow-worm of the night : 
'Tis scarcely bigger than a pin. 
The little light of the village Inn ! 



Y8 THE PHANTASMAGORIA. 

It is a parlor dimly lit, 
And shadows on the arras flit — 
Shadows here and shadows there — 
Shadows shifting everywhere ; 
Very thin and very tall, 
Moving, mingling on the wall, 
Till they make one Shadow all ! 

An old Clock in the corner stands, 

Clicking ! clicking ! all the while ; 
And its long, emaciate hands 
Seem, from mist-enchanted lands, 
To warn that Life hath lessening sands. 
And may wither in a smile. 

A fire is blazing on the hearth. 

And it crackles aloud as if in mirth ; 

By its flickering flame you may chance to see 

There are six. men sitting in groups of three : 

They laugh and talk — they drink and drain 

Their goblets, till to drink is pain. 

And the eyes are brighter than the brain. 

Three gamble at the pictured vice. 
And three upheave the rattling dice — 

The cards go round. 

The boxes sound, 



THE PHANTASMAGORIA. ^9 

A king ! — an ace ! ! a deuce ! — a doublet ! ! 
For luck a laugh — for loss a goblet ; 
An aching smile and a muttered curse, 
A beating heart 'gainst a broken purse — 
Ha ! ha ! ha ! ha ! how wild the din 
Of hearts that lose and hearts that win ! 



PART 11. 



Near the corner, and near the clock, 

Sits a man in a ding j frock ; 

A slouched hat on his head wears he. 

So sunken his eyes are a mystery ; 

His clothes are turned of a rusty hue. 

All worn with age and damp with dew : 

A traveler ! I'll be sworn he be, 

This stranger man so strange to see — 

Weary with driving adown the lea ; 

He hath ridden hard — he hath ridden long, 

And would relish a meal more than a song ! 

The rattling dice come rattling down ! 
The pictured tablets glide ! — 



80 THE PHANTASMAGORIA. 

But a deeper shade on the light hath grown 

Of the parlor dim and wide, 
And the embers utter a fitful blaze 

On the forms that sit beside ; 
For three look white in its ghastly rays — 
White as a corpse of ended days, 
While three are dark and yet darker gaze 
On the cards and dice each player plays 

In the parlor dim and wide ! 

And near the corner — ^near the clock, 

Sits, in silence, still, 
The stranger motionless as a rock — 
The stranger man, with a dingy frock, 
Who entered the room without nod or knock, 

Soft as a summer rill. 

Clicking, clicking all the while. 

The old clock pulses on ; 
As if it never had seen a smile. 
But was kin to that in the Abbey-aisle, 

Chiming for mortals gone I 

Click — click ! and hearts are beating 

High with the fate of game ; 
Click — click ! the clock is repeating 

Its lesson still the same. 



THE PHANTASMAGORIA. 81 

And the shadows tall, on the tinted wall, 
Move and mingle and rise and fall — 

Figures fantastic all I 
While taller, statelier than the rest. 
Under its plumed and towering crest, 
Is a face with colossal woe imprest ! 

Click — click ! and hearts are beating 

High with the fate of game ; 
Click — click ! the clock is repeating 

Its lesson still the same — 
But one has uttered a fearful word, 
And started up like a startled bird, 

To dash the dice-box down ; 
And with the click of the ancient clock, 
Is heard the spring of a deadly lock, 
And then— the sudden, tumultuous shock 

Of a body overthrown ! 

The stranger is standing beside the board — 

Beside its glittering heaps of hoard, 

And to five who with cowardice quail and quake — 

Pale as the moonshine on the lake — 

It was thus the noiseless stranger spake : 

' The blood which has ceased in the veins to run 
Of this form that shall nevermore feel the sun, 

8 



82 THE PHANTASMAGORIA. 

This blood — a score of years ago, 

Sprung from a noble Hidalgo, 

With a great estate and a greater name. 

And a palace proud and a beauteous dame — 

Sprung— a shoot supremely dear — 

A dream of golden-clouded hair. 

Soft as the dew in the morning air, 

And like opening roses fresh and fair ! 

"And it was that noble Hidalgo 
Who sat in this chamber dim and low, 
But now a score of years ago. 
With a youth who bore, beside his name — 
Which had never known the blight of blame — 
A treasure placed in his trusty hand 
By the Sovereign Lord of this mighty Land. 

"And it was in this chamber dim and low, 
As the pendulum wide swung to and fro. 
That the youth and the high-born Hidalgo 
Rattled a cursed horn — 

That they played for the treasures of the King 
Till the soaring larks began to sing, 
And the youth had become a worthless thing — 
A mark for shame and scorn. 

" The youth knelt down at the noble^s feet, 
And, weeping, implored he should not meet 



THE PHANTASMAGORIA. 83 

The eyes of his master, the injured king, 

Who had trusted him well — a worthless thing ! 

Yet he turned, that titled wretch ! away — 

Turned, when a cry compelled his stay. 

And he heard a voice despairing say : 

' It shall follow thy house — it shall blast thy pride — 

It shall be a thorn in thine aching side ; 

Yea, learn, unpitying slave of sin, 

l^ot always lucky are those who win ; 

For they who would thrive with unthrifty clod — 

Who would reap where Fortune's Heel hath trod, 

Are the foes of man and the cursed of God !' 

The blood which has ceased in the veins to run 

Of this form that shall nevermore feel the sun. 

This blood — a score of years ago — 

Sprang from a noble Hidalgo. 

And lam''' — 

Here, the ancient clock, 

With a rusty, rumbling sound. 
Shook as it struck ; and the matin cock 
Answered the solemn chime of the clock, 

Till it echoed round and round I 

The embers that on the hearthstone lay, 
Down into ashes dropped away. 



84 THE PHANTASMAGORIA. 

While, from the lattice worn and white, 

In the moonshine waning with the night, 

A steed, with the torrent's impetuous flow, 

Was seen to sweep the plain below, 

With the slouched hat and the dingy frock 

Of the figure that sat near the corner and clock. 

And which came and went without nod or knock. 

And they who remained on each other bent 

Glances so dim and drear, 
That neither could tell what the other meant, 
Save, in the whole, there was terror blent 
With a wild revealing that Heaven sent 

Was the doom of the dead man there. 

One was a laborer, tough and tanned 
With the toil of tilling his meagre land ; 
The next, a veteran, who had wielded 
Arms in battles bloody-fielded ; 
The third, a friar, grave or gay. 
As chase or chancel led the way. 
With shaven crown and cassock gray ; 
The fourth, a publican, sorry elf ! 
Who cared for no one but himself; 
And the last, a chiel, as we often ken, 
Unknowing their ways in the walks of men. 



THE PHANTASMAGORIA. 85 

And these departed homeward all, 

Far holier than they came ; 
For the signs and sights of that haunted hall, 
Like the proud Chaldean's doom-struck wall, 

Spoke with a tongue of flame. 



PART III. 



Torches are gleaming to and fro 

In the Abbey's olden vault ; 
While a mute procession slowly go 
Into its mouldering depths below, 
And, in solemn order, halt ! 

A monk has chanted the midnight Mass 
For a spirit gone to its final pass ; 
And the little, gloomy sacristan. 
Strives to soothe an aged man. 
As they lift, from the blazoned bier. 

The stately drooping pall. 
And the old man sees him lying there, 

His son — his heir — his all ! 

Thou canst not soothe him, sacristan, 
Go to thy cord and corse — 

8* 



86 THE PHANTASMAGORIA. 

It is a fiend which gnaws that man — 

The worst of fiends — Remorse I 
It is a fiend that whispers still, 
Or noon or night, or well or ill, 
From the dismal waste of his desolate Past 
Moaning, groaning, like the blast 
Round a tempest-stricken mast, 
^^For they who mould thrive with unthrifty clod, 
Who would reap where Fortuned Heel hath trod^ 
Are the foes of man and the cursed of God P^ 

The lights have vanished, and the gate 

Of the Abbey closed its ponderous grate : 

All is silent as before 

The key was turned in that rusty door. 

To add a slumbering mortal more 

To its never, never failing store : 

All is silent save the Owl — 

Sepulchral fowl ! 

In the horrible glee of its midnight prowl^ 

As the Moon is looking on the lake 

Beside the ruined Abbey, 
And its fingers white on the waters shake, 
Like the quivering curls of a silver snake, 
" For the pale old Moon it must keep its wake 

In the dark clouds, thick and shaggy ! 



THE PHANTASMAGORIA. 81 

The night- wind hath a moaning tone, 

And it Cometh moaning by; 
The Hart^s-tongue on the ancient stone, 
That years have crumbled, one by one, 
Answereth — sometimes like a groan. 

And sometimes like a sigh. 



MY FLOWER, MY GEM, AND MY STAR ! 



MY FLOWER, MY GEM, AND MY STAR! 

— ^m — 

As a flower which greeteth the morning 

With joy that effuses in tears, 
When the blush of his glory is warming 

The breast she confusedly bares — 
So Love, when it kindled thy fancy, 

And thrilled thee from fervor to fears, 
Was met with a sorrowing Pansy, 

And worshipped in passionate tears. 

As a gem which the furnace but chastens- 

Withstanding the steel and the rock, 
In which hammer or flame but awakens 

New beauties to brighten the shock — 
So the tempest that struck thy devotion 

Drew out but its depth and its power. 
And the loveliest in all the commotion 

Was the light of the perilous hour. 

As a star which still sweetly shineth, 
The same unto palace and cot. 



MY FLOWER, MY GEM, AND MY STAR ! 89 

Making holy whatever it findeth, 

The darkest or dreariest spot — 
So thy smile has a magic that mingles 

With all which it lingers upon, 
Endearing whatever it singles 

To the spirit its sweetness has won. 

Gentle flower ! that wept in the morning 

Of a chaste and a changeless love ; 
Kich gem ! that no perilous storming 

From dazzling devotion could move ; 
Star of morn, eve and night ! that shines on me 

With constancy nothing can mar — 
Not idolatry's self can miscall thee, 

My flower, my gem, and my star ! 



90 FAREWELL TO THE PALMETTO REGIMENT. 



FAKEWELL ADDRESS TO THE PALMETTO REGIMENT. 



[Delivered by Mrs. Anna Cora Mowatt, (now Ritchie,) at the Charleston Theater, 
on the night preceding the day of the departure of the Regiment for the seat 
of war ; and mentioned in her Autobiography.] 



The trumpet has sounded — the cry has gone forth 
On the waves of the East and the winds of the North ; 
The camp-fire is kindled, the banner unfurled 
Where battlements stretch and where billows are curled; 
For a foeman has risen to sting with his scorn 
The Eagle that flutters where Freedom was born; 
And the sword doomed to sleep when its laurels were 

won, 
Is bared from the scabbard to blaze in the sun ! 

Hear ye a voice, mid the clamor of war, 

That wakens the welkin, and echoes afar ? 

Hear ye a peal of rejoicing and pride, 

Where her cohorts are met and her armaments ride ? 

'Tis Columbia that calls, from the land of the foe — 

'Tis her sons who have answered, and stricken the blow ! 



FAREWELL TO THE PALMETTO REGIMENT. 91 

Again wakes the cry o'er the strand and the sea — 
'Tis thy country now calls Carolina on thee ; 
'Tis thy country, rehearsing thy valor of yore, 
When the bones of thy progeny whitened thy shore — 
When the death-tolling bell for thy patriot rung, 
And a hero was made while a martyr was hung; 
'Tis her voice bids thee come, with the steel and the 

targe, 
To stand at the onset and strike at the charge ! 

Children of Freedom ! the hour has come 

When your bosoms shall beat with the beat of the 

drum, 
And noblest his nature who, scorning to yield. 
Is the first in the fray and the last on the field. 
^ What tho' Danger forbiddingly frown on your path ! 
The greater his prowess who heeds not its wrath ; 
What tho' blood flow — a crimson and crimsoning tide ! 
'Tis the sea on whose surges his pinnace must glide 
Who, betrothed unto Glory, would win her for Bride ! 

Kemember the deeds that your sires have done — 
Remember the worship your sires have won — 
Remember the Present must soon be the Past, 
And strike like your sires, they struck to the last. 



92 FAREWELL TO THE PALMETTO REGIMENT. 

Let your names be embalmed in the blood of your foes, 
Let their fortresses witness the weight of your blows ; 
And each thicket and valley proclaim to your pride, 
Here, a Moultrie has vanquished, or Marion died. 

The prayers of Beauty shall watch o'er ye now. 
Her fairest of myrtles encircle your brow ; 
And her tears shall be brighter, her blushes more sweet. 
To emblazon success, or to soften defeat. 

Then, gird on the shield, and prepare for the strife, 
Tho' with danger 'tis fraught, yet with honor 'tis rife ; 
And for good or for evil — for weal or for woe — 
With your hands on your swords, put your feet on the 
foe! 



WELCOME TO THE SAME. 93 



WELCOME TO THE SAME. 



[Published in one of the Charleston prints, on the day of their return 
to that city, and public reception by the citizens.] 

Heroic remnants of a band 

Whom Glory calls her own, 
Thrice-welcome to your native strand, 

Diminished but unstrown ! 
The song — the shout — the trumpet's tongue, 

Await ye far and nigh, 
With streaming colors to the sun. 

And cannon to the sky. 

By every great and glorious deed, 

That glistens in the Past ; 
By every name in hour of need, 

That struggled to the last ; 
By patriots dead — by life-blood shed — 

By monumental plain — 
By every beam on Glory's bed. 

Thrice-welcome back again ! 
9 



94 WELCOME TO THE SAME. 

Ye left us with enkindled eyes, 

Whose heart-inflaming fires 
Told ye should bear, thro' earth and skies, 

The spirit of your sires ; 
Ye left us in obscurity. 

But to return in light — 
Ye went as shades of evening fly, 

To come like stars of night. 

Immortal band, that never quailed 

When loudest roared the fight. 
But fiercest fought when most assailed, 

Nor yielded left nor right ; 
For every blow ye nobly dealt, 

For every blow ye bore. 
For every thrill your bosoms felt. 

Thrice-welcome to our shore ! 

Thrice-welcome ! 'tis the mother's cry; 

Thrice-welcome ! 'tis the tear 
That mirrors rapture in the eye 

When meet the brave and fair ; 
Thrice-welcome ! those who nobly sought 

For Fame, and dared to find ; 
The rays their valiant deeds have caught 

Leave brighter yet behind. 



WELCOME TO THE SAME. 95 

For those who fell — a saintly prayer! 

For those who live — a smile ; 
The banquet-song — the f^ast — ^the cheer — 

The column and the pile. 



96 TO MARY. 



TO MARY. 



I'm thinking of thee, Mary, 

And twilight shadows fall 
With mournful stillness o'er the scene, 

And deepen on the wall ; 
But, with the dim, departing light. 

Breaks faintly from afar. 
Upon the bosom of the Night, 

A solitary star ! 

I'm thinking of thee, Mary, 

For like that twilight scene. 
The dusk and dew were on my heart 

To darken what was green; — 
The dusk and dew were falling fast 

Upon its faded dreams. 
When, thro' the gloom, thy young love cast 

The fervor of its beams. 

I'm thinking of thee, Mary, 
For, in this twilight hour, 



TO MARY. 97 

A thought of other times will come — 

Of parted friends will lower; 
And early images arise, 

With freshness nursed in pain, 
Of tender forms and tearful eyes 

I may not see again. 

I'm thinking of thee, Mary, 

For, when such moments dwell 
Upon my spirits with the weight 

Of a departing knell, 
A thought of thee breaks thro' the Night 

Of memories that mar. 
With the lone glory of that bright — 

That solitary star ! 

Oh, Mary, Mary, Mary dear ! 

If in my bosom shine 
One thought — one dream — one single wish, 

That single wish is thine ; 
And if to see, and feel, and hear. 

But thee, in heart and brain, 
Be love ! I love thee, Mary dear, 

Tho' overborne with pain. 
9* 



98 TO LITTLE MOLLIE. 



TO LITTLE MOLLIE. 



[My sister-in-law's first child, who expired at 3 o'clock of the morning. 

Her little voice is bushed, 
Her little eyes are closed ; 
And the tiny crib is vacant 
Where her little form reposed. 

Shine fair, suggestive star ! 
On Morn's enpurpling steep — 
God giveth to his gentle one 
His own beloved Sleep. 

We might, indeed, have known 
She had not long to stay, 
Where Sorrow dims the starry night, 
And lingers through the day. 

We might, indeed, have known 
That hers was not the heath — 
The barren spot where never blooms 
An amaranthine wreath. 



TO LITTLE MOLLIE. 99 

That she was made to breathe 
Where constant Summer glows ; 
And the frost of Winter never chills, 
The first-born of the rose. 

Made for a garment white, 

In realms serenely clear — 

To bend her innocent curls of gold 

In their golden atmosphere. 

To live with Him who bade 
All cherub-forms to come, 
First, to his own paternal breast, 
And make that breast their home. 

Then, let us dry our tears. 
And cease, oh ! cease to weep. 
That He hath sent to his sinless one 
His own beloved Sleep ! 



100 THE DIAL-PLATE. 



THE DIAL-PLATE. 



[" Let US crown ourselves with rose-buds, bafore tbey be witliered."] 

All rusty is the iron grate 
That girds the garden desolate, 
But there it stands — the dial-plate, 
A thing of antiquated date, 

Right opposite the sun : 
The wild-moss and the fern have grown 
Upon its quaint, old-fashioned stone, 
And earthy mounds about it strown, 
Seem each to say, in solemn tone, 

*^A race is run !" 

Of yore, in vernal beauty smiled 
This spot of earth, so drear and wild, 
And you might chance to see a child. 
Up-scrambling on the gray stones piled 

Around the dial-plate ; 
Then, might you hear his laughter ring 
Clear as the crystal bells of Spring, 



THE DIAL-PLATE. 101 

When, like a pompous, little king, 
He strutted on that queer, old thing, 
In mock estate. 

Long years have circled slowly round 
Upon that Wheel which hath no sound, 
The urchin has, in manhood, found 
A beauteous maid, and they are bound 

By Hymen's silken ties : 
There stand the couple — side by side — 
The bridegroom and his dainty bride ; 
The sunbeams on the dial slide 
Deep in their cells beneath the tide. 

From crimsoning skies ! 

Comes tottering Age, with thin, white hair, 
And that same youth is standing there ; 
But now, his head is almost bare, 
And twinkles, in his eye, a tear 

Fresh from his withered core ; 
Gone are the loved — the lost — the blest, 
Gone to their everlasting rest, 
Grim Death has robbed the old man's nest. 
And they are, now, his mouldering guest 

For evermore. 

Ye, pilgrims on the shores of Time, 
Of every age and every clime, 



102 THE DIAL-PLATE. 

Like flowers, ye spring up in jour prime, 
Like tliem, to fade at vesper chime, 

In twilight of the tomb ; 
Oh ! pluck the roses while you may, 
Each instant heralds Life's decay, 
Mark well, the DiaPs fleeting ray. 
There is a world beyond the clay — 

Beyond its gloom. 

Insatiate Time expects his fee — 
Look, how he rubs his hands in glee, 
A mighty pair of Scales hath he, 
To weigh Earth for Eternity, 

Relentlessly and cold ; 
From youth, hope, honor, shame and sin, 
He strips the hours to drop them in — 
Take heed ! the Weigher soon must win, 
He stares upon you with a grin — 

Your days are told ! 



MARGARET. 103 



MARGARET. 



'TwAS on the broad, blue Chesapeake, 

Before the suu had set : 
The wind blew, bnt it was not bleak — 
Blew soft and cool and fanned her cheek, 
When, one brief moon ago, I met 

The gentle Margaret ! 

Oh ! she was fair that summer eve, 

Ere yet the sun had set- — 
^Bre yet the twilight tints could weave 
Carnationed thoughts to make us grieve — 
That pearl-dropt Moon when first I met 

The pensive Margaret ! 

She stood upon the dashing deck — 

The deck spray-showered and wet, 
A gem without a flaw or fleck, 
'Not even the soilure of a speck — 

That bride-like Moon when first I met 
The beauteous Margaret ! 



104 MARGARET. 

She stood and gazed upon the sea, 

Lost in its foam and fret — 
She stood, and, gazing, seemed to me 
The sweetest being born to be — 
That torrid Moon when first I met 
The thrilling Margaret ! 

Oh ! hazy hair with brownish dyes, 

Caught in a silken net ; 
And tender, gleamy, shadowy eyes. 
Mysterious as those evening skies — 
That fated Moon when first I met 
The lovely Margaret I 



AGNRS DEW. 105 



AGNES DEW. 



A BALLAD. 



I. 

Near a clear running stream, with a Yoice of glee, 

By foliage and flowers o'erhung, 
Peeped a red-painted cot, through a willow tree, 
Where repeated the mock-bird, you could not see, 

The song which the weird waters sung ! 

II. 

And this cot was the home of a maiden fair. 

With eyes inexpressibly blue ; 
A skin like the white which the spring roses wear. 
So endearingly soft that you scarce would dare 

To look long upon Agnes Dew. 

III. 
She had lovers that vainly sought to obtain 

The heart she so merrily wore ; 
And she laughingly vowed, again and again. 
That she never would wed, to each love-stricken swain. 
Whose lank shadow darkened her door. 
10 



106 AGNES DEW. 

IV. 

Long years flew apace ; and there came to the cot 

A stranger in trappings of gold; 
And the maiden believed he would link his lot 
With the fairy-like child of the humble spot 

Where the hillock's voice answered the fold. 

V. 

Oh ! she listened with cheeks like the crimson glow 

Of the vanishing God of flame, 
While, a Knight's feather shadowed her brow of snow, 
Unto musical cadences, soft and low. 

That deliciously breathed her name ! 

VI. 

But the war-trumpet severed the starry spell 

That enveloped her virgin dream ; 
And the soldier forgot, in the stormy swell 
Of the victor's shout when the Saracen fell, 

The flower by the rustic stream. 

VII. 

And so, when the chill winds of Winter had blown 

Their last breath of sleet and of snow. 
And Spring woke to gird her voluptuous zone — 
The rose on her breast and the dove in her tone — 
Her queenliest lily was low. 



AGNES DEW. 101 

vin. 

The willow yet stands, and the streamlet is there 

With its surge her grave to bedew ; 
But the one's paly locks, like plumes of a bier, 
Trail heavily sad, and, at intervals drear. 

Wails the other for Ao-nes Dew ! 



108 LIFE. 



LIFE. 

^^ 

In every life there is a stream 

Whose waters flow, 
Dark as the current of a dream, 

And seem to throw 
On cup and hall and summer beam 

A sign of woe ! 

In every life there is a ray 

That shineth still, 
From noon to night and night to day, 

Through every ill ; 
And serves to light our solemn way 

Go where we will. 

Oh, traveler ! of that Stream beware 

Which cannot glow ; 
It floweth only where a snare 

Is lying low. 
To deal upon thee unaware 

A fatal blow. 



LIFK 109 

Oh, traveler ! seek that gentle Ray 
Which constant gleams, 

So beautiful that none can say- 
Like what it seems ; 

The Star predestined on thy way 
To throw its beams. 

For in that Stream of leafless Shade 

A fiend is hid ; 
And on thy fall his heart is laid, 

Thy fall amid 
The sinner's shriek and shroud and spade 

And coffin-lid. 

And in that Ray so pure and bright 

A buoyant form 
Will bear thee through the darkest night 

Away from harm ; 
Swift as the rainbow's graceful flight 

Out of the storm. 

Let fate be stern — let fortune fly — 

Their chastening rod 
Strikes not the soul whose strength is high 

Above its clod ; 
The heart may bleed to breaking nigh — 

But trust in God ! 
10* 



110 THE STAR- WATCH. 



THE STAR-WATCH. 



The Sun has dipt Ms ruby gleams 

In ocean ^s breezy blue ; 
The flowers are nodding o'er the streams-: 
Their little spirits full of dreams, 
And, mournfully, the night-bird screams 
Its cavernous halloo ! 
HaUoo ! 
From depths profound 
The notes rebound. 
And rocks resound 
Halloo ! 

The young Moon flickers, in her flight. 

Mid cloudy realms of snow, 
While starry sister-clusters white — 
Grouped vestals of the harvest-night, 
Bow all their silver caps of light 
To mortals here below ! 
Below ! 



THE STAR- WATCH. Ill 

Where silence reigns, 
And Morphean chains 
Bind kings and swains — 
Below ! 

Swung to and fro, the mother's hand 

Her cherub lulls to sleep, 
As wavelets swing above the sand ; 
Chaunting of fabled Faerie-land 
And little Cupid elves that stand 
In roses ankle-deep ! 
That stand ! 
Tread softly ! — how 
Its baby-brow 
Grows placid now — 
That stand ! 

A passionate sigh escapes the grove — 

A tender, pleading tongue ! 
Oh, rosy lips that whisper love. 
With violet eyes, half-turned above — 
The azure of the musing dove 

When yet, the Spring is young. 
Is young ! 
Astarte's car 
Shines first afar — 
Love's glowing star! 
Is young ! 



112 THE STAR- WATCH. 

On toppling crags, Ambition sits, 
Where sea-birds sail abroad : 
'Twixt whiles he mutters mad with fits — 
A storm-cloud wrestling in his wits — 
Grasping each shadow as it flits, 
A self-created God ! 
A God! 
Thro' vistas bright 
Of blood-shot light, 
He plumes his flight — 
A God ! 

Wan Frenzy walks her iron cell, 

With hollow-clanging stride : 
Now hears a spectre-summoning knell, 
Then sees a goblin grim from Hell, 
And starts, when answering echoes swell 
To shriek, when they subside ! 
Subside ! 
Faint — fainter — gone I 
That piteous moan. 
And stifling groan — 
Subside ! 

''Your beakers fill,'' the Reveler cries, 
''Till, foaming, they overflow! 



THE STAR- WATCH. 113 

We'll have uor frowns, nor whimpering sighs — 
All priestly creeds are solemn lies/' 
Revolving reel each moment flies, 
But morning wakes in woe — 
In woe ! 
The after- storms 
Which shake the forms 
Of writhing worms — • 
- In woe ! 

Devotion, rest thee ! sole delight 

Of Him whose name is Love ; 
With waving pinions, cygnet- white, 
A Sisterhood surpassing bright. 
Keep watch, beside thee, thro' the Night, 
And bless thee from above — 
Above 1 
Plow sinless stream — 
Shine heavenly beam — 
God is thy dream ! 
Above ! 



114 A CHARM. 



A CHARM. 



I KNOTf not why a touch can thrill 

The soul until it seems 
A single drop would overfill 

Its pleasurable dreams. 

I know not — but such moments are 

Of measureless delight, 
When Fancy flashes like a star 

Miraculously bright ! 

A weary night — a solemn night 

Is this we tread below, 
And forms resembling thine a light 

To guide us as we go. 

Then, say not, maiden — never say 
Thy heart is like the snow. 

Thine eyes have far too fond a ray 
That we should deem it so. 



A CHARM. 115 

I, too, have sought, with studied art. 

To stay the tides that speak, 
But still, the flood-gates of the heart 

Would overflow the cheek. 

And now, my tristful measure wreathes 

The immemorial lays. 
Which haunt my spirit when it breathes 

Its melancholy ways ! 

I sing, and singing dwell on thee — 

A pilgrim on a star ! 
Who, straining, deems he yet can see 

Some solace tho' afar. 

Oh ! in such times, my Harp will break 

Forth in a fleeting tone. 
But, ere its echo dies, I wake 

To find, I am alone. 



116 IRON CHIMES. 



IRON CHIMES. 



There is a Clock of iron hung 

In the dim towers of Time, 
Which, when its brazen bells are rung, 

Peals a portentous chime ; 
Alarum of the monster-birth ! 

O'er empires wrecked and riven, 
It swings, to ring out Wrong from earth, 

And ring down Right from Heaven ! 

In the sad moonlight of the Past, 

Crepuscular it stands. 
And o'er the waste of things outcast 

Stretches its gloomy hands ; 
Athwart its face are map-like blent 

Traces of blood and tears, 
And its colossal form is bent. 

Under a cloud of years. 

The histories of trampled men 
Are wrought about its base, 



IRON CHIMES. ir 

Which frowningly ensculptures when 

They fell into disgrace ; 
Accursed of fate — their craven forms 

Withered and whitening lie, 
Dismantled like the drifts of storms, 

And palsying to the eye. 

Wretches, who hugged the rusted chain — 

Who cowered, cringed and bowed, 
Nor dared to speak in manlier strain 

And tell their griefs aloud — 
Slaves who were born to breathe and die, 

Hiding the stripes they bore, 
And, never once invoke the sky 

To damn the prison door. 

Slaves of the heart, the head, the hands, 

Encrusted in the core ; 
Who blessed the ignominious bands 

And rapturously wore 
Its links which eat the flesh and kill 

All nobleness of soul — 
With blood that never felt a thrill 

For its degenerate role. 

For them the horologe has rung 
The saddest of its chimes ; 
11 



118 IRON CHIMES. 

And round its hoary fabric flung 
G-rim tablets of their times ; 

O'er these its nether hand is stretched — 
In token of their stains, 

To younger nations yet unmeshed 
By stratagem or chains. 

Look to the loftier Shade and see 

The circuit it surveys — 
A disk of blood and tears, ah ! me, 

But radiant with rays ; 
Lit with a glory not of morn. 

Moon, stars — nor pearl, nor stone — - 
But with the glory of men born 

To hold on to their own. 

The glory of the Roman arm 

That struck a tyrant down. 
When his quick blood beat proudly warm, 

Under the purple gown ; — 
The glory of the deathless few 

Whose fame survives a race. 
And of the later Greek who threw 

His life-blood on its face. 

Of Timoleon and Bruce — of Tell — 
Of Washington — whose grave 



IRON CHIMES. 119 

Hath tolled a never-ceasing knell 

To potentate and slave ; 
Of those who dared to love the right 

More than they feared the wrong, 
And glow — the star-enkindled Night 

Of Chivalry and Song ! 

Look to it well, grave Senators, 

Who sit upon this Land, 
Look to the Clock of woes and wars 

With its prophetic hand ; 
The ship of State is a good craft, 

As staunch as craft can be, 
But a storm may thunder on its mast 

And sink it in the sea. 

Look to it well^ — there is a shade 

Upon its troubled face. 
And deeper gleam the tintings made 

By every tearful trace ; 
Sad brows are bending on us there, 

From the discolored Past, 
And sometimes darkens the noon-air 

Which moans upon the blast. 

The ship of State is a good craft, 
As staunch as craft can be, 



120 IRON CHIMES. 

But a storm may thunder on its mast 

And sink it in the sea ! 
And woe to them who tread its deck 

With parricidal hands, 
To drive it a dismembered wreck 

Upon the shoals and sands. 

There is a sound of brazen bells — 

A strange, mysterious chime. 
Which, ever and anon, upswells 

From the dim towers of Time 
A sound portentous it may be 

Of some impending woe — 
God help the good ship on the sea 

Tho' the North-easter blow ! 



UNSPOKEN. 121 



UNSPOKEN. 

— ^n — 

As, sometimes, the tumultuary deep 

Sinks to serene repose, 
When sunset visions o'er its bosom creep 

As o'er a couch of rose ; 

So, sometimes, the bright Caspian of the Soul 

Is sudden hushed and stilled, 
While, with a glow which summer eves unfold. 

Its tranced depths are filled. 

Maid of the twilight eyes ! that musest late, 

What Star breaks on thy brow. 
With the resplendence of a Golden-gate 

Greeting its angel now ? 

The liquid azure of her virgin dream, 

Spanned, from the realms above. 
By an all-dazzling Iris ! thought — trust — theme- 

Life-dedication — Love ! 
11* 



122 UNSPOKEN. 

Come with me to the rustic paths and see 

A mute scene eloquent — 
That rude cot, planted where the daisied lea 

Is with the mountain blent. 

A form of saintly womanhood which bends 

O'er a still saintlier thing — 
Eyes fixed with rapture that so far trenscends 

The strength of shattered suffering, 

Armed Caesar, with his legions, dared not break 

Their consecration wild ; 
Life ventured — perilled on a single stake, 

And won ! — her first-born child. 

Come with me, where the Artist hand has wrought 

The crown of all his toil — 
The spiritual idol madly sought 

In the hot brain's turmoil ; 

Come, where the monumental Dead have laid 

Their thrice-anointed dust — 
Where Priest and Martyr, Bard and Sage have paid 

The debt all mortals must ; 

Come, where the spells of wizard Nature vrrest 
Her wonders from the sod — 



UNSPOKEN. 123 

Where Lohmon gleams in paradisal rest — 
Niagara preaches God ; 

Come thou and learn, the inmost of the Soul 

Has no terrestial token ; 
And that, while Polar Oceans freeze and roll, 

It never can be spoken ! 



124 HAIL TO THE FREE ! 



HAIL TO THE FREE!^ 

— ^m — 

Hail to the Free ! who, in triumph, have trampled 

The brand of a despot, the badge of a slave — - 
Who have broken the spell, and, with ruin, dismantled 

The prison where wretchedness weeps for a grave. 
Lift the banner o'erhead, till the white, blue and red. 

Like a rainbow shall rest on the shore and the sea, 
And with tones deep and warm, as the swell of a storm. 

Peal in thunder to Heaven — Hail to the Free ! 

Hail to the Free ! who have mastered the magic, 

Which fell upon Beauty and bound her to Shame, 
That with Genius embraced, and the star-lighted baldric 

Tore from his bosom to scoff at his name. 
Strike the high-sounding lyre, 'till its accents of fire. 

Like an anthem shall rise of the billowy sea. 
And with tones deep and warm, as the swell of a storm. 

Peal in thunder to Heaven — Hail to the Free ! 

"^ Written for an anniversary celebration of the Sons of Tem- 
perance. 



SONG 125 



SONG. 



Oh ! with more than the pilgrim of Mecca's clevotioD, 

When he looks on the shrine which his worship en- 
clears, 
Is the glance we cast back at the young heart's deyo- 
tion — 

Its first rose of Summer — the last which it bears ; 
Bright as a halo of sunshine reposing, 

At break of the morn on a billowless stream, 
With bird-haunt eel foliage and flowers enclosing. 

Or blush of a Peri that smiles in a dream. 

Thus, thus must thou dwell on each glance of affec- 
tion — 
Each token of love I have laid at thy shrine, 
When thy bosom first thrilled with the fear of detec- 
tion. 
And its secret alone was imparted to mine ; 
It is linked with each thought which enlivens thy wak- 
ing, 
It embosoms each fancy which softens thy sleep, 



126 SONG. 

And if e'er it be wild as the waves in their breaking, 
'Tis the image of Heaven that breaks on the deep ! 

For vainly the bosom whose pulses have throbbed 

To the beat of a heart it had warmed with its fire, 
Seeks to freeze every trace of the tears it has sobbed, 

And to smother the anguish of pining desire ; 
The remembrance will linger — will flourish — will cling 

As the ever-green ivy encircles the oak, 
And the tempest may strike with its wild-beating wing, 

But together they bend, and together are broke ! 

Bright star of my Soul ! thus united we stand — 

Intermingled in being and blended in breath ; 
Come Fate, with the blight of her storm-shaded hand, 

We will bend — we will break undivided in death ; 
It was Nature decreed it, and Heaven that wove 

The tie which has bound us, in home and in heart. 
And this, only, we know, we live on but to love. 

And thus loving, we never, oh ! never can part ! 



MARCO BOZZARIS. 



w^ 



IN THEEE ACTS. 



DRAMATIS PERSONiE. 

Marco Bozzaris, a Grecian Chief, beading the Suliots, one 

of the tribes. 
Cleon, lover of Cleanthe. 

RoDERic, an intriguing foreigner rejected by Cleanthe. 
Hassan, his accomplice. 
Priest, a prelate of the Greek Church. 
Scutari, a Turkish pacha. 
Turks, Grecians, Guards, etc. 
Cleanthe, Sister to Bozzaris. 

Scene of Action. A small Grecian town near the heights 
of Agrapha ; — afterwards the Camp of Carpinisse. 



MARCO BOZZARIS. 

— ^(^ — 

ACT I. 

Scene I. — A Public Place. 

Enter Roderic and Hassan. 

EODERIC. 

I accept the offer. 

Hassan. 

'Tis strange you should ! 

I had conjectured that you loved her too, 

And thence inferred the proffer would be met 

With undisguised and unrelenting scorn. 

It cannot be ! Affection dwindles not 

Into a huckster, bartering for a bribe 

That which it treasures most. Love you the maid ? 

EODERIC. 

I do. 

Hassan. 

Then, sure you are distraught ! 

EODERIC. 

Distraught ! — 
You're not a fly. 

12 (129) 



130 MARCO BOZZARIS. 



It was my word. 



Hassan. 
A fly ! {apart) the man is mad. 

RODERIC. 

Hassan, [apart.) 

Methinks Ms looks are wild. 



EODEEIC. 

Ay — for 'tis said that microscopic ken 

Doth in the fly a host of eyes discern, 

Which on its tiny limbs are overstrown. 

Two eyes thou hast ; but they so lack the power 

Which they denote, that I belieye thee blind : 

Catch you my drift? 

Hassan. 

Not I. 

RODERIC. 

Would you grow rich ? 
Hassan. 
Methinks I'd like it passing well. 

EODERIC. 

Thou wouldst ! — 
Then, hearken well my plan. — I love the maid, 
Tho' I affect her not. Another man 
Has wooed, and soon will win her for his pains. 
I yet may baulk his hopes ; but, should I fail. 
The Turk, thy Master, shall his wish enjoy — 
If, with his gold, I cannot baulk him, too. 



MARCO BOZZARIS. 131 

And that's predicted in my calendar, 

So, it may chance to pass. Look to the prize ! 

We'll share it when 'tis won. 

Hassan, (aside.) 

The man has sense — 
Ay, sterling sense, withal ! 

EoDERic, {tlioiiglitfully .) 

Where is the camp ? 

Hassan. 

Pitched on Agrapha's frowning length of hills, 
From whence Scutari purposes to march 
Forth to Larissa — there to meet the chiefs 
Who head the rebel forces of the Greeks. 
Xow, I bethink me of it, I would mention 
A notable freak which accident contrived : 
The Pacha's tent above a moss-grown shrine. 
Once to Diana sacred, has been spread. 
Ha ! ha ! 'twill please the damsel — will it not ? 

EODERIC. 

They never thrive who with such idle thoughts 
Do waste the time which else might be employed 
In profitable works. Thy errand waits. 
Think on the gold ! — commend me to thy lord. 

{Looking around.) [^^^'^ Hassan. 

Cleon not here ! sure it is past his time. 



132 MARCO BOZZARIS. 

A moment since he promised we should meet, 
So that, with ampler phrase, he might dilate 
On the good fortune then, he hinted at. 
It chafed me sorely, and I looked a bear 
When 'twas my part to simulate the lamb. 
He comes — he comes — now, to begin my game ! 

Enter Cleon.] 
Fair Sir, I wish you joy — joy unalloyed — 
TJnmingled with the coarser clogs of life — 
Joy, such as Hymen, when his votive torch 
. Gilds snowy nuptials with voluptuous light, 
Showers upon the bliss-bewildered pair 
Who hail the lustrous beacon brighter far 
Than all the galaxy of quenchless orbs. 
Which, at their births, configured in the sky. 
To mould the mazes of their destiny. 

Cleon. 
Good Roderic, this avalanche of speech 
Bespeaks a soul in sympathetic bonds 
United with mine own ; and yet methought 
Your looks, but now, grew sad, when I proclaimed 
The sudden change, unto your friendly ears. 
Successful of my suit. 

KODERIC. 

The sudden change ! 
Words to be gravely conned and noted down 



MARCO BOZZARIS 133 

In Reason's reckoning ere — my worthy friend, 
Your color changes at my foolish phrase, 
As if my idle babbling mirrored forth 
Forms more substantial than the fleeting shadows 
Of a mistrustful and ill-favored mind. 
Forgive me, Cleon ! it was friendship stirred 
My utterance up — pshaw ! — what a senseless fool 
Is an unbridled tongue ! 

Oleox. 

Come, Sir, I pray 
You forthwith will proceed ; I like not looks 
Which seek concealment in the words they prompt. 

RODERIC. 

Nay, is it kind to Sir me with an air 
Of splenetic indifference and scorn ? 
I, who have ever been your trusty friend — 
Your faithful counsellor ; within whose breast 
The secrets of your own have still been shrined, 
As in a casket safe from every eye 
But those of duty, confidence and love. 

Cleon. 

I own my fault, good Roderic, and I pray 

You will overlook the abruptness of my speech. 

In sooth, it was not meant to wound ! so come — 

Out with thy woeful tale — ^thou canst not well 

Refuse it to thy friend ! 

12* 



134 MARCO BOZZARTS. 

RODERIC. 

My tale, did'st say ? 
I do remember me of no such thing. 
A tale of mine I ha I ha ! ^tis a good jest ! 

(Apart.) 
For it will mar his fortunes if he take. 

Cleon. 
Now, what a wayward humor hast thou got ! 
Erewhile you muttered with portentous looks 
Misgivings of my future happiness ; — 
Suggestions made with suffocated breath 
Concerning her — Koderic — I charge you speak! 
Speak boldly out, lest you would have me think 
A faithless friend oft wears a smiling face. 

EODERIC. 

Why, what a tameless monster is a man, 
When frantic passion lords it o'er his soul! — 
Not even in thought thy fair one did I wrong — 
Yea, thanked the stars, as they had blest myself 
Instead of thee, with her consenting sighs. 
And now, you heave upon my guiltless head 
A world of execrations for my pains. 
Go to ! — Go to ! — e'en friendship's fiercest ire 
Should be more gentle, more subdued than this ! 

Oleon. 
Roderic, thou art old in all the ways of life. 



MARCO BOZZARIS. 135 

The mazy windings of the human heart 
Have been to thee a study pondered over 
With labor still successful as it toiled ; 
And tho' thy bosom may impassive be 
To Beauty's smiles and tender blandishments, 
Yet hath experience taught thee to esteem 
Aright the warmth of its Promethean glow — ." 
Its headlong fervor — its impetuous zeal, 
That, as old Ocean thro' the empyrean, 
Its sanguine crest uprears unto the Sun — 
Nor heeds the lapse it needs must undergo — 
Would reach the Heaven of its wild desires, 
Tho', at its gates, precipitate to fall, 
From those bright portals hurled for evermore. 
I would be prudent ! — Roderic, I would scan 
The precipice from e'en its dizziest cliff, 
Before I dart into the depths below. 

EODERIC. 

Well now, thou reasonest like a reverend Sage— 
Not as your crazy louts who straight ignite 
Into a seething flame, if they but see 
A dainty damsel on their antics smile. 
Who whine the livelong day — wan vigils keep 
Mght after night, for one whose heart of hearts 
They have not sought to probe ; but doating dream 



136 MARCO BOZZARIS. 

That rarest gems in costliest caskets dwell, 

And heavenly forms must heavenly fruitage bear !- 

That's a lie — a most egregious lie. 

Cleon. 
Weill— 

RODERIC. 

You marvel at my speech — 'tis natural : 
The unsuspecting mind is ever loth 
To dive beneath the surface of the stream 
Which laps the cloudless azure as it flows ; 
But, like Narcissus, with insatiate eye, 
Views its own image, there, reflected bright. 
It hath an ear for every Siren's song 
That lures the unwary pilgrim of the seas 
To sweet destruction in her sparry cells 
And hollow haunts, profound ! Cleanthe — 

Cleon. 

Ayl 
What of her ? You'd say she is — 

RODERIC. 

A maiden 
Passing fair — yet, not overnice withal ! — 

Cleon. 
Go on — I'll hear it all ! — ^but ere thou dost 
I do beseech thee thou wilt take my sword I 
It is a rash appendage to a man 



MARCO BOZZARIS. 13t 

When passion threatens Reason on her throne 
And frenzy stirs a whirlwind in the brain, 
As she now does in mine ! — 

EODEEIC. 

N"ay, draw it forth — 
And pierce the bosom to its inmost core 
Would cease to beat ere it would see thee duped. 

Oh, be patient — 

Cleox. 

Who told you I was born 
Upon Olympian heights, that I should own 
An attribute of Gods ! — Ay, I'll be patient ! — 
Presently — presently — 

EODERIC. 

Cleon, your maids 
Affect me not, who change their fantasies 
As summer sunsets vary in their hues, 
Or the gay trappings which adorn their shapes. 
I'd like her most for consort of mine own 
Whose steadfast soul, high-towering o'er the herd 
Of silly foplings that besiege the fair, 
Could nod disdainful on their wretched arts 
In virtuous truth and resolution strong. — 
And it did grieve my mind this morn to note 
A damsel whom, of all her fickle sex, 
I deemed the one incomparable flower 



138 MARCO BOZZARIS. 

With looks lascivious linger on the speech 
Of one with whom she could acquaintance hoast 
A single, fleeting day. Oh ! how it smarted 
My honest bosom when I thought me too 
That peradventure she was plighted then, 
By sacred vows irrevocably bound 
Another's bride to be ! — 

Cleox. 

That it had burst ! 
The wide-extended concave of the skies — 
That it had crumbled down its airy props 
And crushed the wantons out ! — Is there no more ? 

RODERIC. 

No more ? — methinks 'tis full enough to bear. 

Cleon. 
To bear ! — ay — ay — it is enough to bear. 
Oh, ye avenging fates ! to wrong me thus, 
I, — who had been her slave — who worshipped her 
With the wild fervor of idolatry ! 
Pshaw ! I will not weep — weep ! sooner shall flames, 
From the revolving orbits of my sight, 
Gush, and consume her ! This accursed instant, 
Roderic, will I hence ! — nay, do not hold me — 
Unloose my hands, I say ! You might as well 
Seek to arrest the thunderbolts of Jove, 



MARCO BOZZARIS. 139 

As to witliliolcl my vengeance from its mark — 
There! — {Thi^ows off BoderiCj and is about to rush 
out.) 

EODEEIC. 

Cleon ! (he continues) Eash man ! {still continues) 
She may be guiltless ! — {Cleon rushes back to him,) 

Cleon. 
Guiltless ! — Roderic, see you mislead me not; — 
For, by the furies struggling at my heart, 
Thy life were worthless as the withered leaf 
Which quivers rent in the autumnal blast ! 
See you mislead me not. Till now you spoke 
Suspicion's tongue had never breathed her name, 
But I had deemed her chaster than the snows 
That overmatch the splendor of the dawn 
In queenly Ossa's coronet of clouds ! 
The proof — the proof, I say — I want the proof 

EODEKIG. 

Ungrateful man! and thus you thank the friend, 
Whose over-zealous spirit made him bold 
To speak the thing which prudence had concealed. 
If you do hold me false unsheath your steel. 
And think the while you strike it to my heart, 
A traitor's death, a traitor's deed atones. 

Cleon. 
I feel as one, who, in a labyrinth lost. 



140 MARCO BOZZARIS. 

Gropes out his darksome way. Not a crevice — 
Not a friendly loop, gives access to the light, 
And all around is desolate and drear. 

EODERIC. 

A single hour that darkness vrill dispel ! 
'Tis not by rash resolves and thoughtless acts 
That thinking men their purposes achieve. 
I overheard her tell the Suliot slave, 
(For 'tis no less a thing than that dark man 
Who constant prowls unknown about our streets. 
Her smiles, 'twould seem, have chosen to ensnare,) 
That she would meet him when the vesper bell 
Gives doleful note of the expiring day. 
Meantime, should chance dispose her in your path, 
Or of free will an interview you seek, 
See that you shape your conduct to disclose 
No change of feeling since you last conferred. 
Cheer up, my Cleon ! thou hast yet a friend 
Will still be true, whatever ills betide 
Thy fortunes, or thyself. 

Oleon. 

Ills ! didst thou say ? 
Oh ! Rod eric, I have drained the bitter cup 
Down to its very dregs. The stranded bark 
Whose precious freight is lost, fears not the storm 



MARCO BOZZARIS. 141 

Which may its canvass to the winds disperse, 

And sink its carcass in the surging sea. 

And thus I stand upon the shores of life, 

A very beggar, reft of every hope, 

Save that the stroke may speedily befall 

Which blots his name from Time's decaying chart. 

EODEETC. 

Nay, you forget — the proof is yet to come — 
She may be innocent ! — 

Oleox. 

Ha ! thou hast roused 
My pulses from their swoon, and poured fresh life 
Into my sinking frame. She may be true ! — 
She may be loved again ! \^Omnes exeunt. 



Scene II.— ^ Cell 

(Marco Bozzaris seated at a table y on which are im- 
plements for writing J bookSj papers, a crucifix and 
Bible, etc. etc.) 

Bozzaris, [Throwing aside a Book ivhich he has been 
perusing.) 

Ambition ! thou art but a dream at last — 

A dream wherein the Dreamer ventures all 

13 



142 MARCO BOZZARIS. 

The pearls of his imperishable life 
To follow phantoms in Cimmerian shades — 
Visions which gleam on the disquieted soul 
As the white mist above the fountain's fall 
Evokes a Goddess from the showering beams, 
To cheat the sight and circumvent the grasp ! 
Vain passion ! heroes may have felt thy fires, 
But I disown their soul-debasing power. 
Greece — fallen Greece! my mother earth, my home- 
If home I still may call thee while the chains 
Of bondage fast are festering in thy flesh. 
And hoarsely clanging mid thy mouldering Tombs, 
Thy tumbled Altars and thy trampled Gods ! 
To me, thy cries of wretchedness and woe. 
Come like a summoning trumpet from on high. 
To rouse thy sons from their degenerate sloth, 
And hurl the turbaned Despot from his throne 
Down shivering to its base ! 
Enter Priest.] 

Father, what news ? 
Good Heavens ! a tear is trembling in thine eye, 
And sorrowing sighs burst from thy heaving breast. 
Speak out ! I'm calm — calm as the awful pause 
Which Nature makes ere her consuming bolts 
Exploding roll in thunders to the earth — 
What of the Turk ? 



MARCO BOZZARIS. 143 

Priest. 
A blow — a heavy blow, 
My son. This morn Scutari and his troops 
A hundred captive Greeks to slaughter led, 
Upon Agrapha's Heights ! — 

BOZZARIS. 

A hundred lives ! 
Hear it thou Ruler of unnumbered worlds, 
A hundred lives as drops of water shed, 
To mock thy mercy and blaspheme thy creed ! 
Justice — -justice — -justice ! 

{Falls into a chair — his eyes are riveted upon the 
sacred volume, which he suddenly seizes.) 
Father, ^tis here — 
Look you, the hand of God hath written down. 
Who sheddeth blood, by blood shall he atone ! 

Priest. 
Thou speakest true, my son. The avenging Power 
Is ever watchful to reward the jnst. 
And bring the guilty to their destined end. 
But be not rash ; — the work of toilsome years 
May in an instant to the earth be dashed 
By the wild promptings of unthinking zeal. 
Scutari's spies infest our very hearths ; 
And wert thou once discovered, Greece no more 



144 MARCO BOZZARIS. 

Could hope for justice from a ruthless foe, 
Or dream of freedom in her abject state. 

BOZZARIS. 

Father, thou wrong'st thy country and thy kind ; 
For there are souls in this vast cause engaged, 
To whom Bozzaris were but as a ray — 
A single light to the great Sun compared. 
Souls in capaciousness like to the caves 
Which suck the waters of the whirlpool in — 
Yea, sceptred Powers, whose circling diadems 
Are pledged to prop our hapless country up. 
Till she shall stand, as once she did of yore, 
Colossus-like, a land jark to the globe! 
Russia has spoken — France is up in arms — 
Proud Albion answers from her triple-isles — 
And young America, from all her hills — 
Her hundred hills and forest unsubdued. 
Cries — '^ Onward, to the strife !'' 

Priest. 

My son, my son. 

These are the baseless visions of a mind 

With patriot frenzy fraught. Oh, didst thou perish. 

What voice, with fervor equal to thine own. 

Would fire the sons of Hellas with her wrongs 

In the ennobling cause of parent Nature 

And of Man ? 



MARCO BOZZARIS. 145 

BOZZARIS. 

The ashes of their fathers ! — 
The crumbling columns of their sacred fanes — 
The prostituted altars of their sires — 
Their rocks and mountains lifting to the sky 
Titanic forms all fetterless and free ! 
Their Hails of Justice that, while rankest weeds 
In desolation clasp their hallowed forms, 
Have yet a voice to tell them- — Ye are slaves ! 
These, holy father, are the tongues, which rouse 
The sons of Hellas to redress her wrongs ; 
An these were powerless to bestir their blood, 
The godlike Spartan and his brave compeers, 
Their sheeted ghosts, from the chill earth would rear, 
To blast the hirelings with their hot rebuke ! — 

Priest. 
Nay, since thou hold'st thy life but as a drop — 
A worthless drop in the wide-ocean waste. 
And leanest on the dynasties of earth. 
Who, with fair promises, all unperformed, 
Have glutted G-reece and kindled up her ire, 
Bethink thee, Marco, of another drop — 
A gentle drop from the same source derived 
Which light and life into thy frame infused — 
A tender blossom in its virginal bloom. 
Which on the soil ere sunset may be cast 

13* 



146 MARCO BOZZARIS. 

For lack of some sustaining hand to prop 
Its drooping petals up. My son, thou hast 
A sister to protect — 

BozzARis, [with emotion.) 
Have I ? — the world 
Grows weak and weaker with the weight of years. 
There was a time when patriot hearts were steel^ — 
Their eyes, like fountains frozen hard and cold, 
Which softening sunbeams cannot melt or thaw — 
Their lips firm-fixed and passionless as Death, 
Or marble image of some angry God. 
Those days have past ! and now, the things which vow 
Their life-blood to their homes, have hearts that melt. 
Eyes that do constant rain, and coward lips 
That cannot speak their thoughts. 

Priest. 

Thou lov'st her, then, 

And thou hast not forgot — 

BOZZARIS. 

Father, forgot ! 
Oh ! tell the mother to forget her babe. 
The brooding ring-dove to forget its mate. 
The weary pilgrim to forget his shrine. 
But tell me not that I could e'er forget 
A claim so sacred and a tie so strong. 



MARCO BOZZARIS. 14t 

Pkiest. 
Tho' fifteen years have circled round their spheres, 
Since, a mere infant, she lisped out thy name, 
And, with loud sobs, bedewed thy youthful cheek, 
When bleak oppression and a tyrant's hand 
Your hearthstone blasted with their wintry blight, 
And wide apart your fragile barks dispersed 
On Fortune's stormy sea ; theo — to avenge 
An injured country's wrongs, and her — to nestle 
In this aged breast, her constant prayers 
Have still invoked a blessing on thy head. 
And still her talk, my son, has been of thee ! 

BozzARis, [luitli much emotion.) 
She talked of me, you say ? ungrateful thought ! — 
I deemed myself unfriended and alone, 
A thing unloving and unloved by all ; 
And now to know there was a living heart, 
That time and distance could not rob me of. 
Makes me forget the quality of man. 
And like a child weep with a childish joy ! 

Priest. 
Methought this morn within our chapel walls 
I saw you both on eager converse bent. 

BOZZARIS. 

'Twas even so. Father, when I behekl 



148 MARCO BOZZARIS. 

Her angel form low bending at the shrine, 
While meek devotion from her upturned eyes 
Followed the soaring incense to the sky, 
It seemed as tho' my sainted mother stood 
Kevived and breathing, beckoning me to come. 
And, to my bosom, clasp her once again ! 
I did accost her — who could have forborne ? — 
And so much like our parent's was her smile. 
That when she questioned — in a timorous tone — 
If we should meet again at vesper bell, 
With eager haste an assent I expressed 
My will could not withhold ! — 

(A loud knock at the door of the cell.) 

Priest. 

Who knocks so loud ? 
And with irreverent and impatient haste. 
Demands admittance to our humble cell ? 
(From without — The State.) 

BozzARis, [eagerly/.) 
The State ! — instant unbolt the door — 
Father, it is my trusty messenger 
To Ulysses dispatched ! My beating heart. 
Thy pulse's swell presages glorious news ! 

Unter Messenger.] 
Well — thou'rt here at last — how fare Ulysses 
And his force ? 



M^VRCO BOZZARIS. 149 

Messenger. 
Even most valiantly, my chief. 
Ulysses at the head of his brave band 
Hath twenty thousand Musselmen subdued 
By fierce Mehemed led ! 

BozzARis, ijiastily.) 
A seraph's tongue 
Had spoke not half so sweetly to mine ears. 
Quick to my men, and bid them all prepare — 
To-morrow night we climb Agrapha's Heights 
And drag the Moslem standard to the dust I 
Begone !— nay, pause a moment — further say, 
And see thou dost it with a fiery eye, 
This very morning that Scutari's sword 
A hundred captive Greeks did slay — now go ! 
And, as the lightning on the forest falls, 
A blaze enkindle in their honest hearts ! 

\_Exit Messenger. 
The star of Greece rules the ascendant now. 
What prophet said it ne'er should culminate ! 

Priest. 
My sanguine child, thy generous ardor chasten, 
Awhile, and learn that Providential blessings 
Are ill-deserved when we accept their boons 
With thankless bosoms. He is blest that blesses ! 



160 MARCO BOZZARIS. 

{The vesper hell is faintly heard.) 
Hark ! the vesper bell, with peals protracted far, 
From hill and valley wafts a people's prayer 
For quick deliverance from foreign rule. 

(Bozzaris kneels — Monk raises the crucifix at his 
girdle and blesses him — the bell tolls deeper and 
deeper J and is occasionally mingled with the distant 
chaunt of the choristers and organ — Picture — the 
curtain falls.) 



END OF ACT T. 



MARCO BOZZARIS. 151 



ACT II. 

Scene I. — A Modern Grecian Chamber, 

Enter Cleanthe and Cleon. 

Cleon. 
Xay, loveliest lady, will jou still persist, 
In sullen silence to contemn my speech, 
As it were most offensive to your ears, 
Xor yet more grateful to the heart they serve ? 

Cleanthe, (not heeding — musingly.) 
{Apart.) He looked so fondly on me, when he thought 
My eyes beheld him not. How very strange ! — 
Why should he gaze upon a stranger thus ? 
'Tis said, indeed, that Love will sometimes grow, 
In one short moment, to its fullest height. 
So rich and fertile is the genial soil 
From whence its foliage springs ! But 'tis not love ! — 
Oh, Love hath eyes that like the noontide beams 
Shed a consuming glory as they shine. 
Not the mild moonlight gleaming in his glance. 



152 MARCO EOZZAKIS. 

Cleon. 
Fair lady, say — oh ! shall I not be heard, 
But as an idiot spurned with dumb disdain ! 

Cleanthe, [still abstracted.) 
{Apart) His hand, too, trembled as it clasped my own. 
And then, he smiled — how that smile haunts my brain ! 
A strange, familiar beauty like the hues 
Of flowers beheld in half-forgotten dreams — 
A spell of magic, which the vail withdrew 
Of mingled memories mantling o'er the past. 
And to my eyes my childhood's home revealed 
Green as the glad reality itself 
It is not Love I feel ? no, no, not love ! 
Love conjures up a blush upon the cheeks. 
When we but think we love — mine do not bloom 
As they have bloomed before ! — 

Cleon, [apart.) 

Her looks — her words, 
Half uttered, half expressed by signs and sighs. 
All — all denote, that where I once have thriven 
In amplest fortune, I am bankrupt now, — 

Cleanthe ! — 

Cleanthe, [impatiently.) 
Sir — you are too forward grown. 
And should bethink you, till the nuptial rites. 
That I am free, and — 



MARCO BOZZARIS. 153 

Oleon. 
Free you may remain. 

Cleanthe, (^with surprise.) 
Cleon !— 

Cleon. 

So please you, Madam, I would take — 

Most humbly take my leave. 

{Moves off in the act of going.) 

Cleanthe, [apart.) 
My froward humor hath offended him ! — 
You mean it not — (Jie continues) Cleon {still continues) 
I do beseech — \_E3cit Cleon. 

He onward moves unheeding all my cries ! — 
He loves me not — he's gone ! 

{Falls into a chair and weeps.) 
Be-enter Cleon, unseen^ and stands beside her.'] 

'Tis better so I — 
He never loved me — else he would have paused — 
Paused when I called him — I did call him, too 1 
Love does not fret and fume when it is chid 
By what it treasures most; — but still endures, 
With gentle mien, and uncomplaining tongue. 
Bearing a mountain ere 'twill break a heart. 
And clinging closer when it is most wronged ! — 
I should not weep — and yet my tears flow out 
Faster and faster down my burning cheeks 1 

14 



164 MARCO BOZZARIS. 

I had not left him thus — no I would have begged — 
Yea, kneeled to him — 

Cleon. 
As he now kneels to thee ; 
Graying forgiveness for his frenzied doubts 
Of thy angelic constancy and truth ! 

Cleanthe ! — 

Cleanthe. 

^Sir, you have deceived me much ! 

Cleon. 
Deceive thee— never ! Oh, my own Cleanthe ! 
As the young leaflet of the shrinking plant 
Recoiling closes at the slightest touch. 
Is keen affection to the sense of wrong ! 
Nay, hear me out, and learn when I forsook 
How then I loved thee most ! I deemed thy "word 
Plighted, perhaps, in an importunate hour, 
Since pondered o'er, was e'en regretted now; 
And thus believing — maddened at the thought ! — 
Would have resigned — resigned a lover's right — 
His life of life — his hope — his wealth — his worth — . 
All had resigned, to bless another's arms — 
Content if thus he could secure thy weal, 
Tho' it o'erthrew his own I 



I loved another. Sir. 



Cleanthe. 

I never said. 



MARCO BOZZARIS. 155 

Cleon. 

You said it not — 
But, Oh ! Cleanthe, all jour actions spoke ! 
'Tis not the mere acknowledgment of love 
That makes the lover glad. He would be prized 
In every movement of the shape adored, 
In every trifle — every look and smile — 
Repeat her raptures, or reflect her woe, 
Be as it were into her soul transfused — 
Wear all its hues of gladness or of gloom — 
The rainbow's radiance or the raven's wing — 
Her second self become ! Thou wilt forget 
My sullen folly, and forgive my fault ? 

Cleanthe, [smiling.) 
They should forgive who hope to be forgiven — 
Nay — now release my hand ! 

( The vesper hell is faintly heard.) 
(Starting up.) Was it the bell ? — 

Hark ! heard you not a bell ? 

Cleon. 

A bell!— what bell? 

Cleanthe. 
The vesper chime ! 

Cleon, [vehemently.) 

The vesper chime I 



156 MARCO BOZZARIS. 

Gleanthe. 

Alas ! 

What moves you thus ? your face is deadly pale, 

And humid drops are dropping from your skin — 

Oh, speak to me I Had it declared your doom, 

You could not seem more awe-struck or amazed 

Than now you do ! Oh ! Cleon, speak to me — 

Speak ! — 

Cleon, [recovering.) 

But a moment — it — will soon be past ! 

A sudden faintness — and perhaps this room — 

'Tis very close — 

Gleanthe. 
Oh I let us leave it, then— 
The dewy coolness of the twilight air 
Will aid your breathing — quickly, let us hence ! 

Gleon, (apart,) 
What senseless fools are natures, passion-blinded I 
I had forgotten all my bitter wrongs 
In the soft music of her thrilling tones. 
No I — it were base to aid deception's wiles 
By tame submission and convenient sight, 
Making her falsehood and dishonor mine. 
Now, while my heart as adamant is strong, 
I'll tell her— 



MARCO BOZZARIS. 151 

Cleanthe, {affectionately.) 
Cleon, wilt thou not come forth? 
My frame is hardier than thou deemest, and owns 
Strength to sustain thy steps. 

{Takes his arm and supports him.) 
Enter Roderic in back ground.'] 

Cleon. 

I cannot speak ! — 
I am a coward, and to Heaven confess 
What I dare not disown ! 

Cleanthe. 

Look on me, love ! 

Cleon, {aside.) 
Oh, God 1 can guilt lurk under such a smile ? 

lOmnes exeunt 

RoDERic, {looking after them.) 
So — so — the gudgeon at the bait has caught. 
And flounders helpless round the fatal crook. 
Ay — fawn upon him ! — span him with thy arms ! 
For, by the burning thirst within my soul. 
That smile will whiten into wan despair. 
And that soft girdle of encircling snow 
Be wrenched in twain — unclasped — unnerved — un- 
strung ! 
Oh ! brainless idiot ! — rhapsodizing fool I 

14* 



158 MARCO BOZZARIS 

Joy in thy Eden, for the serpent's folds 
Are coiled around thee, and its venomed fang 
Already quivers in thy panting bosom ! 
Was it not aptly done ? To coin a tale — 
A tale of horrors from such simple stuff. 
Such penetrable matter that a mole 
Had looked it thro', and laughed the empty trick 
To very scorn ! And yet such fairest show 
Of honesty to spread about its parts 
That headlong down he plunged into the pool — 
The shallow pool — conceiting it a flood! 
Come, shrewd Invention, from thy secret cells ! 
The iron reddens in the groaning forge, 
The vivid sparks float dizzily around — 
Back swing the sledge! — strike, Cyclops, strike the 
blow ! lExit RoDERic. 



Scene II. — A Chapel, with centre door. 

Enter Cleanthe, hastily. 

Cleanthe. 

To leave me so abruptly, and with him — 
With Roderic, too ! I know not, but there played 
About his thin, white lips, a smile of mirth 
Intensely horrible. Would he had stayed ! 

Enter Bozzaris.] 



MARCO BOZZARIS. . 159 

BOZZARIS. 

Sweet Lady, Fortune gilds my lonely way, 
Since we do meet again ! — 

Cleanthe, [apart.) 

How my heart throbs ! — 
Sir — you are kind — but to devotion's call 
]N'aught in my mind can justify delay. 
For fifteen years it hath my custom been, 
A lost friend's image to recall, and crave 
At this still hour, a blessing on his head. 
Pray, let me pass. 

BOZZARIS. 

A moment, lady, pause I 
This precious friend, was he a brother, too ? 

Cleaxthe. 
He was — oh, sir, I do beseech you, speak, 
If you have chanced on him, or aught have learnt 
Of his mysterious fortunes, or himself ! 

BOZZARTS. 

A friend I once had, lady, whose delight 
It was to speak of one — a youthful sister 
Who from her childhood he had not beheld. 
In sooth, I know not, but it might be he, 
Of whom you speak in such endearing phrase. 

Cleanth«. 
And did you know him well ? 



160 MARCO BOZZARIS. 

BOZZARIS. 

Ay, gentle lady, 
We were in motiye, thought and act, conjoined 
As never man to fellow-man has been ! 

{Apart.) 
Would I could tell her ! 

Cleanthe. 
Speak ! — his name ? — 

BOZZARIS. 

Bozzaris. 

Cleanthe, [with much emotion.) 
'Twas he ! — it was my brother, sir, you knew ! 

Bozzaris. 
Oh ! nature, nature, what a sway is thine ! 
The touch of Time whole dynasties may crush. 
Imperial Greatness into dust dissolve. 
Seas from their beds divert and continents submerge, 
But kindred souls by thy hand linked in love, 
No power can rend in twain ! — 

Cleanthe. 

He loved me so, 
When children both, tho' much my senior he, 
It was our wont to gambol on the green 
Whose sunny tint was lost among the hills 
That swept, in purple ridges, round our home. 



MARCO BOZZARIS. 161 

No morning past, but early as the lark 
His silver-throated minstrelsy began, 
With bounding steps we trod the meadow-paths 
And clambered up the cliffs — to mark the Sun 
When his first splendors, sliding from the peaks 
Of far imperial prominences, fell 
Upon a lakelet in the valley ^s depths, 
Which sparkled like the advent of a star. 
Beside a rustic cottage. 

BozzARis, {apart.) 

Is there a voice, 
Which, from its tomb, the dead past can revive ? 
A spell to wake its images and thoughts 
Fresh — life-like — unimpaired ! And long you lived, 
In this bright Paradise of simple faith 
And unaffected love ? — 

Cleanthe. 
Alas I not long. 
A serpent came to poison all its sweets 
And snatch the fruit untasted from our lips ! 

BOZZARIS. 

Fair lady — ^tho' a stranger — I would fain 
The mournful sequel of your story hear. 

Cleanthe. 
Are you a Grecian, and can you not guess 
That serpent was a Turk ? — 



162 MARCO BOZZARIS. 

BozzARis, [vehemently,) 

My curses on Mm ! — 
Your pardon, lady — I would not make bold, 
By interruption to obstruct your speech, 

Cleanthe. 
My father, sir, an aged, infirm man. 
Whom not the lapse of years could ever make 
Forgetful of his country's heavy woes, 
One day with others in rebellion joined 
A villainous Pacha to pull down and teach 
That injury will sometimes breed revenge — 

BozzARis, [eagerly,) 

Ay— ay— go on. 

Cleanthe. 

A traitor marred their schemes ! 

And my poor parent by a craven blow — 

A blow inflicted when his hands were bound 

From this usurping wretch — one little hour 

Of torture breathed — then 

BOZZARIS. 

Then I— 

Cleanthe. 

Breathed out his last. 

BOZZAKIS. 

A sainted martyr 1 

Cleanthe. 
But before his eyes 



MARCO BOZZARIS. 163 

Were closed in death, with half-articulate sounds 

And jagged words which in mj ears resound, 

He charged my brother, and the charge secured, 

By oaths propounded in expiring gasps. 

To know no country and to own no home 

Till Greece— 

BozzAEis, (yeliemently.) 

Should be avenged ! 

Oleanthe. 

Oh ! had you seen 
My brother then — disfigured — ghastly pale — 
His hands to Heaven uplifted, and his eyes — 
Stranger ! — he bore the look thoij bearest now ! 
Enter Roderic and Cleon in background.'] 

BOZZAEIS. 

Have you no wish that brother to behold ? 

Cleanthe. 
A wish too deep for language to impart ! 

BOZZARIS. 

A solemn promise he would have thee make 
Not to divulge the mutual tie which binds 
His blood to thine, and makes his name thine own ! — 

Clea^'the. 
By the Eternal Source of Truth I swear it ! — 
By all my hopes in this world and the next. 



164 MARCO BOZZARIS. 

BOZZARIS. 

Yea, tho' it should the lily, from thy brow, 

Of stainless virtue pluck, and honor blur 

With blackest spots of infamy and shame, 

Even then — 

Cleanthe. 
I swear ! 

BOZZARIS. 

He stands before thee, now ! — 
Cleanthe, I am he ! — 

{She shrieks, and falls into his arms.) 

Oleon, [drawing his sword and rushing forward .) 
The caitiff's blood— 
His heart's blood on my head ! 

BozzARis, [supporting his sister with one hand, and with the 
other opposing the swords of Cleon and Rodeeic.) 

Back, rufiSans, back ! 

At your life's peril back, I say ! — 

Cleanthe, (Jbreaking from him, and endeavoring to rush 
between the combatants.) 

Help I— help !— 
(The centre door is suddenly flung open, and the 
Priest, in his sacerdotal robes, with censer in his 
hand and followed by his retinue, appears.) 

Priest. 
Irreverent men ! is it the house of God 



MARCO BOZZARIS. 165 

That ye have sought to set His word aside, 
And spill the blood which unto Him ye owe ? — 
Look you, I lift the sacred censer up, 
And, in His name, thus, I command you pause ! — 

{The comhatants drop their swords^ points to the 
ground — Cleanthe kneels, clasping her hrothei^^s 
hand and looking to Heaven — Priest raises aloft 
the sacred censer — Picture — curtain falls.) 



END OF ACT II. 



15 



166 MARCO BOZZARIS. 



ACT III. 

Scene I. — A Ghaniber, 
Enter Roderic and Hassan. 

EODERIC. 

Hast borne her safely to the Pacha's camp ? 

Hassan. 
I have, my lord. 

EODERIC, 

Thou art a faithful knave ! 
Another thing I had commended thee — 
Dost thou remember it? — 

Hassan. 

Ay, my good Lord, 
Even as I bore her to Scutari's tent, 
A word I whispered softly in her ear. 
That there was one who, from the tyrant's hands, 
Could yet deliver her. 

KODERIC. 

A glorious knave ! 
Thou art a paragon of trustiness — 
And she said — 



MARCO BOZZARIS. 161 

Hassan. 

Firmly, she would rather die, 
Than owe existence, or that dearer thing. 
Bereft of which existence is a blank, 
To such a wretch as thou ! 

RODEEIC. 

Did she, 'tis well ! 
Mark me, good Hassan, there will come a time, 
And that full soon — when I shall hold her fast — 
Fast in these cursed arms ! The bird ensnared 
May flutter in the fowler's net, but still 
'Tis caught, good Hassan, and its shrieks are vain 
Tho' all the woods resound ! 
See to my gold ! — 

The Turk shall keep his promise word for word — 
And we will share it when it is secured. 
Hearken, before thou goest. This night the Greeks 
Have set apart to storm the Pacha's camp. 
In the wild tumult of the bloody fray 
An arm must bear her from the Moslem's tent, 
And it shall be mine own ! — Thou keepest guard — 
And tak'st my meaning — Get the gold, good Hassan — 
We shall divide the spoils ! — 

Hassan. 

My lord, I heed 



168 MARCO BOZZARIS. 

Your every phrase, and trust your promise pledged 
For compensation. [^Exit Hassan 

EODERIC. 

Thou wilt trust my promise — 
Wilt thou ? thou may'st as well perform it, too ! 
Your godly sages teach Ingenuousness— 
Another name for blind credulity, 
That knaves may profit by the good man's thrift. 
Promise ! — this world's a world of Promises ! 
They breed in earth — they suffocate the air — 
They shine out from the clouds, — are like the clouds, 
A fleeting pageant still presaging false : 
The lover doats on promise — and is duped ; 
By promise Knowledge doth a starveling grow ; 
The rich man turns a beggar — ask the cause ? — 
Why promise made him so ! There gleams the goal — 
And men rush eager to secure the prize 
Which proves a punctured bubble being caught. 
Oh ! what a world is this ! where rankest weeds 
For precious plants are taken, and Certainty 
By counterfeit is made an arrant fool. 
And pale Imposture walks the waking hours ! 
He fortune wins who fortune boldly woos ! — 
What matters it her hurricanes may blow ? 
My freighted bark bends bouncing to the breeze — 
We sweep the surge I land — landing-place in view ! 

[Exit RODERIC. 



MARCO BOZZARIS. 169 



Scene II. — A rugged pass in the mountains — sur- 
rounded by rocks and cliffs on all sides — in the 
background a high peak shelving gently to a ledge 
of rocks, from which the Grecian banner is dis- 
played. Grecian Leaders seated on rough frag- 
ments of stone, and holding council, discovered. 
Priest among them. 

Priest. 
Two prisoners taken, did you say, my fi'iends, 
And one of them, a Greek ; what is their crime ? 

1st Leader. 
Why, that the one a Turkish soldier seems, 
And bears about him jewels worth a mine ; 
While his companion, tho' akin to us 
In fellowship of nation and of name, 
Did stoop to converse with the infidel. 

2d Leader. 
Suspiciously to parley with a dog — 
Whose fate 'tis meet he should be made to share ! 

3d Leader. 
We have decreed it — 'tis beyond recall ! 

Priest. 
Decreed it ! — by what right ? Your purposes 
Are deeper, chieftains, than your words — the deed 

15* 



no MARCO BOZZARIS. 

Were foulest murder, and, as such, I call 
High Heaven to witness, I denounce the act ! 

1st Leadee. 
Priest, 'tis your part to watch the cure of souls. 
And not in secular debates to raise 
A Yoice presumptuous, and an air assume 
Which ill-befits a minister of grace. 

Peiest. 
What ill-befits a man who bears the port 
Of noble manhood, and affects to own 
Its sky-born springs of action and of thought. 
It well becomes a minister of grace 
To censure and disclaim ! Where is your chief? 
You lack his assent to this dire decree. 
And will not dare, so lacking, to fulfill 
The steps which it enjoins. 

1st Leadee. 
Silence, old man ! — 
Your speech is framed in violence and spleen. 
Bring forth the prisoners ; \_Exit Guards. 

They shall hear their doom. 

2d Leadee. 
Retaliation is the law of strife, 
A principle which even brutes obey. 



MARCO BOZZARIS. 171 

Ente7^ Cleon and a Turk, guarded. 

Priest. 
And ye would mimic brutes ? Chieftains of Greece, 
My countrymen — my friends ! oh, hear me out, 
And think a brother's love inspires my tongue ; 
Do not thus rashly blur your spotless names. 
Disgrace your standard, and the wrath provoke 
Of that great Judge, whose equity sublime 
Withholds the victor's laurel from the strong, 
But watchful still awards it to the just ! — 

Cleon, [recognizing Priest.) 
Father, you know me not ? 
Priest. 

My son — my son ! 
What evil chance has brought you to this spot, 
This den of vultures and of famished wolves, 
Who in nocturnal solitudes surprise 
The unwary victims of their vicious arts — 
Who set at naught the sacred claims of Love, 
Make earthly justice an assassin's jest, 
And even the high commandment of the Skies, 
Derisive, trample down ! — 

1st leader, [to Turk.) 
Turk, thou hadst jewels when our soldiery 
Surprised thee lurking spy-like in our camp — 
Produce them instantlv. 



172 MARCO BOZZARIS. 

2d Leader. 

Produce the gems — 
They should be sharers who have won the spoil. 

Priest, [wrenching the casket from prisoners hand.) 
Ye shall not touch it, sacrilegious slaves ! 
'Till ye have nerveless struck this withered arm, 
And hushed in death the voice which brands ye all 
Traitors to Greece, your homesteads, and your sires ! 

1st Leader, [drawing his poignard upon him.) 
Dotard, be still ! I would not murder thee. 

BozzARis, [appearing on the summit of the cliff.) 
Who talks of murder here ? 

(Descends and advances on the stage,) 

Your swords unsheathed. 

And prisoners bound in chains! — what mean these 

sights ? 
Father, your office 'tis to be sincere. 
Let me but hear the truth — the cause, the cause — 
A casket too ! — who brought that poison here ? 

1st Leader. 
A man we captured in our camp concealed. 

BOZZARIS. 

Well I and his crime ? 

Priest. 
That he is weak, my son, 



MARCO BOZZARIS. 1*73 

And carries treasures which these dastard Greeks 
Blush not to coYet, and so coveting, 
With brutal force to seize ! 

BoZZARIS. 

To seize ! go on — 
I like that word — 'twas modestly expressed — 
Why said you not to filch ! 

Pkiest. 

'Tweretrue, but still — 

BOZZARIS. 

Things have their names, and names should be em- 
ployed 
Unfalteringly to note what they express ! 

{To chiefs.) 
And ye have sunk to this ? ye who did boast 
That unborn worlds should echo to your deeds, 
And the dim Future, by your Glory's light, 
Be fired as with a blaze ! This counsels valor ? 
To haunt the highways where your fathers' bones 
Thick-strew the soil, in suns of ages bleached. 
And with the self-same weapon ye have sworn 
To free your heartstones from a tyrant's thrall, 
Play cut-throat pranks, and pillage all you meet — 
Patience of Gods ! — this instant, yield your swords ! 



174 MARCO BOZZARIS. 

1st Leader. 
He is an infidel, a Moslem dog. 

BOZZARIS. 

Yield up your swords ! 

2d Leader. 
A faithless wretch, no better— 

BOZZARIS. 

Than a bandit ! 
Now, sirs, your stubborn obduracy chafes 
My blood to fiercer glow, and conjures up 
A demon in my veins you'd best not stir. 
Traitors, relinquish what ye have disgraced 1 
Hoa, there ! secure these men ! 

{Guards advance — chieftains draw their swords as 
if about to resist them.) 

1st Leader. 

I will not yield ! 
Who dares advance, let him defend his life.^ 

2d Leader. 
We're equal all — Bozzaris is no chief ! 

BOZZARIS. 

Soldiers upon them ! what ! and do ye shrink ? 
Or do ye too adore the Golden Calf, 
Which their base hands have reared into a God ? — 



MARCO BORZARIS. 175 

Caitiffs ! my arm unaided shall achieve. 
That which ye blench united to perform. 

{Draws his sword — rushes on rebel chieftains, and 
disarms them. — 

{To soldiers.) 
Behold the minions ye have called your chiefs I 
Gaze on them now — gaze on your puppet shows, 
Mark you that pallid craven who exclaimed, 
'^Bozzaris is no chief !^' see how he shakes, 
And that same arm which dared uplift the steel 
Black treason to confirm, look how it droops, 
An impotent mass of subjugated flesh 
Palsied with villainy. Away with them ! 
Within the inmost recess of our cave 
Bestow them instantly. A moment hence 
And as the falcon pounces on its prey, 
Even from her eyry 'mid these mountain peaks 
Shall injured Hellas spring upon her foes ! 

TuEKisH Peisoxer, ['kneeling at Bozzaris's feet.) 
Your noble nature, chieftain, has provoked 
Within my bosom, sorrow for the part. 
Which, tho' in duty, it was mine to play. 
The costly baubles in this casket shrined. 
Were, by Scutari, to a knave despatched. 
Who, from her home in this same vicinage. 



116 MARCO BOZZARIS. 

A lovely maid this morning bore away 
To Carpenisse's camp. 

BozzARis, [eagerly,) 
A lovely maid ! 
Learned you her name ? 

Turk. 
Clean the. 
(BozzARis is struck dumb with amazement,) 

Cleon. 

Heavenly King ! 
What is it I hear ? 

Priest. 

Our Cleanthe ravished — 

Marco ! — he is too speechless horror struck 

By this calamity. 

Cleon. 

Relentless fate, 

Oh, she is lost indeed I 

BozzARis, [recovers.) 

Who says she's lost ? 
I'll pluck her stainless from his foul embrace 
Tho' turbaned Turks were plentiful as sand, 
And they stood armed with lightnings in my path ! 

{Tlie alarm drum of the Greeks is heard,) 
Hark I hark ! — it rolls — the note of vengeance rolls — 
And the loud welkin repercussive rings 
Defiance to the foe I To arms — to arms ! — 



MARCO BOZZARIS. l^t 

Your country calls — ye sluggish Greeks, to arms I 

[Exit BozzARis. 
Cleox. 

Good father, do not leave me yet — stay, stay — 

My brain is wild with sudden change of thought, 

And indistinct perception of the cause — 

The damned cause of my imagined wrongs ! 

Roderic — where is he ? — 

Priest. 

'Tis reported, gone — 
None whither knows. 

Oleon. 
Ah ! now, I see it all — 
I have been duped and he hath played me false. 
Oh ! miserable ingrate that I was — 
Oh 1 fool, by his own folly thrice-condemned. 
To have believed a villain when she vouched 
Her simple statement with her virgin honor. 
Come forth, my sword ! Father, I lead the charge — 
Ho ! for the camp 1 wings — wings to meet the foe ! 

[Omnes exeunt. 



16 



Its MARCO BOZZARIS. 

Scene III. — Scutari's tent — (a decayed altars-frag- 
ments of columns and statues^ once part of a Temple 
of Diana.) 

Enter Scutari and Hassan. 

Scutari. 
What says the girl ? 

Hassan. 

She will not yield, my lord, 
But still persists in suUenness to scorn 
Your presents and your love. 

Scutari. 

Then lead her hither, 
And instantly ! [^^zY Hassan. 

So fair, and yet so coy ! — 
ISTay, 'tis the modesty that ever waits 
On maidenly passion prompting it to shrink 
From every tremulous shadow of desire. 
She must be mine ! — Ha, does she come so soon ? — 
Nor need compulsion to enforce her steps — 
'Tis well ! — she trembles, too, and on the earth 
Her downcast eyes are timidly inclined. 
Hate is a fiercer, wilder thing than that ! — 
A pilgrimage to Mecca, but she's mine, — 
Mine, by the Prophet, and that tamely, too ! — 



MARCO BOZZARIS. 179 

Enter Cleanthe, led by Hassan.] 

Hassan, betake thee to thy watch and see 

No midnight brawls, or boisterous merriment 

Of drunken revelry assails our ears — 

Go !— \_Exit Hassan. 

Beauteous maiden, art thou then so chary 
Of winning smiles that Love seems winter-bound 
In sculptured fetters on thy faultless lips, 
And passion waxes colder in the gleam 
Whose lustre gave it birth ? 

Cleaxthe. 

But that thy creed, 
Which owns no mercy and respects no law 
On Human or Divine, forbids it, Turk — 
Because it tells me it were profitless 
With supplication to besiege thy soul, 
I'd crave a favor even at thy hands. 

Scutari. 
Bright Houri ! much thou wrongest thyself and me — 
Yea, by the sacred Alcoran I vow, 
This, thy first boon, shall graciously be heard 
And instantly allowed. 

Cleanthe. ^ 

/ A passing whim ! — 

I'd have thee listen to a simple tale, 
Which in my youth was told me of a maid 



180 MARCO BOZZARIS. 

By chance inveigled in a tyrant's toils — 

A tyrant, who, her father's blood had shed ; — 

Of how she heated — strange as it should seem ! — 

His fiery ardor to intenser glow, 

By picturing before his wolfish vision 

The frightful image of her murdered sire, 

Clad in a panoply of foulest wrongs, 

Unburied — unappeased I — ' 

Scutari. 

I cannot list 

So sad a tale, fair lady, at this time — 

To-morrow — 

Cleanthe. 

Turk, thy word is pledged already ! 

She was a Grecian, this same maiden was, 

A vigorous offshoot of the Grecian hills — 

By Grecian parents bred in virtue's path — 

Taught to adore one great Eternal cause, 

Taught to revere the precepts of His code, 

Taught to believe His Justice never sleeps, 

But high-enthroned above our narrow ken, 

Its ceaseless vigils keeps o'er guilty minds 

And punishment prepares ! — 

Scutari. 

Naught do I see 
In this applies — 



MARCO BOZZARIS. 181 

Cleanthe. 
Well — well — 'twill come anon. 
This damsel's father, as I said before, 
Was by a Moslem murdered — one in power — 
A mighty Pacha of the Turkish realms. 
Who proudly bore his turbaned front aloft, 
And deemed no hand could pluck the crescent off 
Which glittered in its folds ! 

Scutari. 

The end of this ?— 

Cleanthe. 
Patience, good Pacha, thou shalt hear it all ! — 
By his red steel of every hope bereft. 
Of every solace — every thing beloved — 
Forsaken — friendless — on a callous world 
Cast in her tenderest years to wander far, 
And seek for shelter on its desolate moors, 
At length, she found a home ; and from that home — 
That latest refuge of her bleeding heart. 
By the same ruthless hand was torn away ! 

Scutari, 
Wilt thou give o'er ? 

Cleanthe. 

Not till my story's told. — 
And yet with all this dire account of wrongs, 



182 MARCO BOZZARIS. 

That he had heaped upon her innocent head, 

Even when he sought to rob her of that gem, 

Which, to the worthy in our weaker sex. 

Is as a second Saviour — Chastity ! — 

'Tis said she threw her arms around his neck 

As now, 1 fondly circle thee with mine; (attempts to 

undo the dagger involved in his girdle.) 
Gazed in his eyes as I gaze into thine ; (continues to 

undo it.) 
Smiled sweetly on him as I smile on thee. 
And then — -(detaching it from his girdle.) 

Scutari. 
Oh, then — 

Oleanthe, [starting hack and presenting the poignard.) 
Defied him in his tent ! 

Scutari. 
What would'st thou, wretch ? 

Cleanthe. 

Defend my womanhood 1 

Scutari. 
In vain thou seek'st to foil me, frantic girl I 
With but one word I could an army rouse, 
Were not my arm unaided, unsupplied. 
Sufficient for the task. Return the steel. 



MARCO BOZZARIS. 183 

And learn submission is the better part 
Of weakness in distress ! — 

Cleanthe. 

Submission, Turk ! — 
Go teach thy coward lesson to the wretch, 
Who values life so measureless a boon 
That to retain it, she would venture all, 
By making Heaven's uncorrupted gift — 
The vestal shrine of her immortal being — > 
A loathsome den for undissembled lust 
And sacrilegious riot ! — stand to thy place, 
Thou shalt not stir a step. 

Scutari. 

Another word, 
I call my sentinels ! — 

Cleanthe. 
Call if thou wilt ! 
{Rushing to the altar and standing upon it.) 
Upon this altar do I rear my form — 
This fragmentary relic of a grace, 
Which as a Deity my sires adored. 
A voluntary victim, here I stand ! 
But raise thy voice a breath above its key — 
A fleeting tone — and my own hand shall free 
My spirit from its frame ! — now call thy guards, 
And bid them do thv will. 



184 MARCO BOZZARIS. 

{From without cries of ^^The Greeks— The Greeks!" 
raingled with shouts of the enemy — rolling of drums 
— alarm, etc. etc.) 

Scutari. 

What hoa, my guards ! 
The Greeks — ^the Greeks ! — Hassan I — we are betrayed ! 
Tra-itors, will ye not come, but in my tent — 
Leave me to perish by these monsters' hands ? 
Woman, beware I — lest I enforce my way, 
And tread upon thy corse. 

Cleanthe, [opposing Mm,) 

Thou shalt not pass ! — 
Turk, thou may'st deem me succorless and weak, 
But with a fainting nation's strength sustained. 
Thus, I obstruct thy path ! 

Scutari. 

This shall decide I 
(He struggles with her — endeavors to wrest the poig- 
nard from her grasp. — Enter Bozzaris, who rushes 
in just as she has fallen^ ovei^come with her exer- 
tions, and the Turk is about to plunge the dagger in 
her breast,) 

Cleanthe, {observing her brother.) 
Marco 1 my brother ! 

Bozzaris, {stabbing him with his own weapon.) 
Despot ! Satan calls, 



MARCO BOZZARIS. 185 

Go answer to Ms summons. 

( The Turk falls and dies,) 
Dearest sister ! 

(Embracing her.) 
Thy limbs are safe — unhurt — the body scatheless, 
And the soul — he dared not ? — 

Cleanthe. 

What if he had, 
When with that fatal weapon I could force 
Death to forestall disgrace ? 

BOZZARIS. 

Thou art indeed, 
What, in his wildest dreams, a brother's love 
Depicted thee — my fond, heroic fair ! 
(Enter several Greeks.) 

A Greek. 
My lord, the Turks, recovering from surprise, 
Are fiercely pressing our retreating ranks I — 

BozzARis, {veliemently ,) 
Do they retreat ? Now, by the restless shades 
Of their insulted ancestry I swear. 
He bites the dust from my determined hand, 
Who dares to yield an inch ! — 

n 



186 MABCO BOZZARIS. 

{To some of the Greeks.) See that she's safe ! 
{To others.) Follow me ! 

\_Exit BozzARis with Greeks. 
{The din of battle grows louder and louder — the 
drums heat — the contending parties shout — report 
of musquetry, etc, etc) 

Cleanthe, {approaching the door of the tent, and looking 
out upon the field,) 

Mercy, what a scene is this ? 

Their scattered ranks like vapors tempest-charged 

In one dense mass of undistinguished shapes, 

Are mingling all their might! — They move — ^they 

move, — 

The swelling flood tumultuously rolls 

To meet the opposing tide. Their burnished arms 

Seem, in the moonlight, a sulphureous sea ! 

They meet — ah I what a shout was that ! — a flash 

Kindles the plain — Oh ! righteous Father say, 

{averting her glance, ) 

Did'st thou great Reason upon men bestow, 

That like brute beasts which prey upon their kind, 

They should delight in carnage and in blood ? 

{Looking forth again.) 

A single warrior climbs the beetling cliff", 

From which their flag, like an ill-omened bird, 

Flaps o'er the yawning precipice below — 



MARCO BOZZARIS. 18t 

They follow him — from crag to crag he leaps — 
They gather round him — with a lion's strength 
He strikes them down — and back the slaves recoil ! 
Thousands are swarming up the steep ascent — 
He heeds them not— but roots the standard up, 
And keeps them all at bay ! 

{To her attendomts,) Why gape you thus ? 
Have you not swords ? go use them if ye can ! 

\_Exeunt attendants. 
He cannot stem the tide — they'll hurl him down 
By force of numbers — down the smoky chasm — 
He's on the brink — Great God ! protect him now. 

(Shouts of exultation from the Greek forces.) 
He's saved ! — he's saved ! 

{Shouts of '' BozzARis! BozzARis!") 

'Tis my blood they have saved ! 
{Falls fainting at the foot of the altar.) 

jEJn^er RoDERic] 

KODERIC. 

Sure some kind spirit smiles upon my scheme, 
That I have 'scaped the contest with my life ! 
How ? in a swoon ! why I am luckier far 
Than I conceived myself ! 

Enter Cleon hastily, who pauses upon seeing 

RODERIC. ] 

'Tis but to will 



188 MARCO BOZZARIS. 

The thing I would, and it is instant done 1 
Where is the man who can defeat me now ? 

Cleon, [coming forward.) 
Here ! — Hell-engendered monster, canst thou gaze 
On me, nor blench to bare thy craven steel ? 

KoDERic, [drawing his blade.) 
My sword shall speak my answer to thy threat 
And teach thee, braggart, Roderic was not born 
To glut an idiot's rage ! 

(They fight — Roderic is wounded.) 
My curses fall, 
A mildewed blight upon thy hopes of bliss I 
I'd trample thee, had I another life, 
To dust, proud Grecian — but — I've tortured thee 
Worse than a thousand — deaths — 'tis well ! — 'tis well ! 

{Dies.) 

Cleon, [gathering up Cleanthe in his arms.) 
Pair drooping lily 1 not a mother's arms 
Could fold thee to her palpitating breast, 
More fondly than mine own. Thy truthful eyes 
Are closed and cold, as death's hermetic seal 
Had set its impress on their lids of snow, 
And those pale lips seem only to be dumb 
With deeper eloquence to chide my sins ! 
Soft — she revives — Cleanthe ! 



MARCO BOZZARIS. 189 

Cleanthe, {reviving.) 

Is lie safe ? 
Whoe'er thou art, speak, is that warrior safe ? 
Or did we meet — only to part again, 
And then, to meet no more. — 

{Recognizing Cleon.) Thou — Cleon here ? 
Do not forsake me more I 

(Shouts of victory y enter Bozzaris, mortally wounded^ 
the Turkish standard in his hand, and followed by 
Greeks.) 

My matchless brother I (Hushes to him.) 

Cleon. 
His sister ! Pate ! when will thy wonders cease ? 

Bozzaris, {hurling the flag upon the ground and trampling 
upon it.) 

There let it rot ! Insignia of the serf ! 
What hand will raise thy tattered shreds aloft, 
And dare again unfurl thee on a soil 
Baptized in blood heroic and confirmed 
By bones of Sages and oracular Bards I 

(Staggers — Cleon and others support him.) 
My limbs grow faint and fainter, while I speak — 
A chill sensation creeps around my heart. 
'Tis death, Cleanthe — but a noble death ! 
Weep not, my sister, I had lived for thee — 



190 MARCO BOZZARIS. 

But 'twas decreed, for Greece, that I should die. 

{Starting forward wildly.) 
IVe scaled the height — stand firmly there — press on ! 
We'll track the tiger to his inmost lair — 
The flag ! ha, ha, — shout — shout — the field is won. 

{Dies.) 

(BozzARis falls into the arms of Cleon — Cleanthe 
bends over him — his eyes are fixed in death upon the 
Grecian standard home by one of his followers — 
the drums roll mournfully from without — Picture 
— the curtain falls.) 



(end of third and last act.) 




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